Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

Have you ever heard that thrilling line? Do you even know who Paul Revere is? If you're

under say 30, I'm going to guess that the answer to both of these questions might be no.

This is a very serious problem, but it's not your fault. It's a serious problem because it means

you've been cut off from one of our greatest American stories. And it's not your fault because

no one bothered to teach you about this courageous man and the great American poet who made him famous.

It seems professional educators decided that other topics were more important to your education,

but they made a mistake. A big one. The story of Paul Revere is part of our heritage. It's

and countless other stories like it unite us as it distinct people where they shared noble past.

They also inspire us and stir national pride. These are good things vital to the future of the country.

Without them, we're just 300 million different individuals living between Canada and Mexico.

It wasn't always this way. In fact, not long ago, you couldn't have left high school without

memorizing the line I quoted in many of the lines that follow. So let me write a wrong and tell

you about two remarkable Americans who lived half a century apart, one a silversmith and one a poet.

Paul Revere and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. By 1775, the American colonists and their

British masters were on the verge of war. The flashpoint was Boston. It wasn't so much a matter of

where the British would strike, but when to give themselves some advance warning, the rebels created

a team of couriers. One of them was a successful 40-year-old silversmith and engraver named Paul

Revere. On the night of April 18, two lanterns were lit in the tallest structure in the city,

the old North Church. This was the signal that the fateful moment had arrived. The British were coming.

Revere rode out into the darkness to warn his compatriots to prepare for a fight. That fight came

the next day in Lexington. The War of American Independence had begun. But in the decades following

...