Synopsis
The war for independence is often regarded as a people's struggle for liberty in the face of colonial oppression. However, the truth is that many men and women remained loyal to the British crown, and chose sides simply to lay claim to their neighbours' land. Reconstructions illustrate how the rebels' advanced military tactics sparked a conflict that raged beyond the control of the idealists behind the uprising: Boston brewer Sam Adams, silversmith Paul Revere and merchant smuggler John Hancock.
- Programme: Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
- Episode: 01: The Shot Heard Around the World
- Channel: BBC Two
- Broadcast year: 2003
Licence: ERA Licence required
Free to watch for UK schools, colleges and universities with an ERA Licence
UK only
Staff and students of licensed education establishments only
Cannot be adapted
Add Notes
More clips from Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
02: American Crisis 1776 | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
02: American Crisis 1776 | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
As Washington is forced out of New York, his army begins to desert, until a daring raid across...
03: The War Moves South | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
03: The War Moves South | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
The British open a new front in the southern colonies, winning a series of victories and findin...
04: The World Turned Upside Down | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
04: The World Turned Upside Down | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
By 1781, the British had enjoyed command of the sea and with it the ability to move th...
02: American Crisis 1776 | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
02: American Crisis 1776 | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
As Washington is forced out of New York, his army begins to desert, until a daring raid across...
03: The War Moves South | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
03: The War Moves South | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
The British open a new front in the southern colonies, winning a series of victories and findin...
04: The World Turned Upside Down | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
04: The World Turned Upside Down | Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War
By 1781, the British had enjoyed command of the sea and with it the ability to move th...
More resources about History
S01E02: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand | Days That Shook the World
S01E02: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand | Days That Shook the World
How the duke's death led to the start of the First World War.
01: Medieval London | Filthy Cities
01: Medieval London | Filthy Cities
Dan Snow gets down and dirty in medieval grime to discover how the London of today was forged in the filth of the 14th century.
Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley
Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley
Documentary, presented by Lucy Worsley, which uses dramatised testimony to tell the story of a group of working-class women conducting a dange...
04: The Battle Against the Spanish Armada | Battlefield Britain
04: The Battle Against the Spanish Armada | Battlefield Britain
Peter and Dan Snow take a look at the battles that shaped our nation. Drake's unlikely sea victory against th...
S01E04: Hiroshima | Days That Shook the World
S01E04: Hiroshima | Days That Shook the World
Documentary recalling 6 August 1945, when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, with testimony from American colonel Paul Tib...
Clare Balding's Secrets of a Suffragette
Clare Balding's Secrets of a Suffragette
In 1913 Suffragette Emily Davison stepped into the path of the King's horse at the Derby. Clare Balding examines the story of Emily,...
04: Revolution | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
04: Revolution | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
Andrew Marr revisits the Britain of Margaret Thatcher and comes to some surprising conclusions about the British nat...
S01E06: Kristallnacht | Days That Shook the World
S01E06: Kristallnacht | Days That Shook the World
Two days defined the fortunes of 20th-century Jews: Kristallnacht on September 9, 1938, a turning point in Nazi persecution...
02: The Land of Lost Content | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
02: The Land of Lost Content | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
The 1950s were a period of apparent calm, order and prosperity for Britain, but much of the populace w...
03: Paradise Lost | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
03: Paradise Lost | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
As the 1960s progress, Harold Wilson takes centre stage in a rapidly changing Britain as the country looks to a f...
Dunkirk (2017)
Dunkirk (2017)
Hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops find themselves in an impossible situation. Christopher Nolan's epic wartime action thriller.
Hiroshima
Hiroshima
Dramatic reconstruction of the devastating impact of the first atomic bomb to be used against people on the citizens of Hiroshima.
01: Advance Britannia | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
01: Advance Britannia | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
Andrew Marr revisits Britain in 1945 and finds the country victorious but nearly bankrupt, beginning a battle...
The Children Who Built Victorian Britain
The Children Who Built Victorian Britain
Using animation and actual recorded testimony, historian Jane Humphries tells the story of the child workers whose exploitation was ...
Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
In a one-off precursor to his Historyonic's series, Nick Knowles gets a behind-the-scenes look at why a Yorkshire-born zealot called Guy Fa...
05: New Britannia | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
05: New Britannia | Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
In the final part of Andrew Marr's national saga, Britain enters the post-Thatcher era. Many have done well durin...
05: 1968 Vietnam | Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields
05: 1968 Vietnam | Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields
Peter and Dan Snow reveal the techniques use by US marines to flush out Communist fighters who lived in a ne...
05: The Battle of Naseby | Battlefield Britain
05: The Battle of Naseby | Battlefield Britain
Peter and Dan Snow take an in-depth look at the battles that shaped our nation using state-of-the-art graphics. They go back t...
S01E10: The Assassination of JFK | Days That Shook the World
S01E10: The Assassination of JFK | Days That Shook the World
The stories of a day that rocked the American presidency: the assassination of its youngest leader, John F. Kenn...
The Somme: From Defeat to Victory
The Somme: From Defeat to Victory
Drama-documentary which offers a new perspective on the most infamous battle of World War I, revealing how it was on the Somme that the Bri...