Eurasia

Area	54,759,000 km2
Population	4,620,000,000 (2010)
Pop. density	84/km2
Demonym	Eurasian
Countries	92 (list)
Dependencies	9
Unrecognized regions	8
Time Zones	UTC to UTC+12

Eurasia with surrounding areas of Africa and Australasia visible

Afro-Eurasian aspect of Earth

Eurasia is a geographical continent. It refers to the uninterrupted landmasses with their associated islands and regions, surrounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, along the Sinai Peninsula, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the east.

Overview[link]

Physiographically, it is a single continent;^[1] the concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity and their borders are geologically arbitrary. Eurasia, in turn, is part of the yet larger landmass of Afro-Eurasia, whereby Eurasia is joined to Africa at the Suez Canal.

Eurasia is inhabited by almost 5 billion people, more than 72.5% of the world's population, 60% in Asia and 12.5% in Europe.

History[link]

Eurasia was the host of many modern civilizations, including those based in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs and Steel, credits Eurasia's dominance in world history to the unique east-west extent of Eurasia and its climate zones, and the availability of Eurasian animals and plants suitable for domestication. He included North Africa in his definition of Eurasia, due to it having a similar climate and peoples.

The Silk Road symbolizes trade and cultural exchange linking Eurasian cultures through history and has been an increasingly popular topic. Over recent decades the idea of a greater Eurasian history has developed with the aim of investigating the genetic, cultural and linguistic relationships between European and Asian cultures of antiquity. These had long been considered distinct.

Geology[link]

Eurasia formed 325 to 375 million years ago when Siberia (once an independent continent), Kazakhstania, and Baltica, which was joined to Laurentia, now North America, to form Euramerica, joined. Chinese cratons collided with Siberia's southern coast.

Politics[link]

Every two years since 1996 a meeting of most Asian and European countries is organised as the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).

Members of the ASEM

Use of term[link]

History of the Europe and Asia division[link]

In ancient times, the Greeks classified Europe (derived from the mythological Phoenician princess Europa) and Asia (derived from Asia, a woman in Greek mythology) as separate "lands". Where to draw the dividing line between the two regions is still a matter of discussion. Especially whether the Kuma-Manych Depression or the Caucasus Mountains form the southeast boundary is disputed, since Mount Elbrus would be part of Europe in the latter case, making it (and not Mont Blanc) Europe's highest mountain. Most accepted is probably the boundary as defined by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg in the 18th century. He defined the dividing line along the Aegean Sea, Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara, Bosporus, Black Sea, Kuma-Manych Depression, Caspian Sea, Ural River, and Ural Mountains. This distinction between Europe and Asia has spread to the rest of the world, even though Asia contains multiple regions and cultures as large and populous as Europe, and as different and geographically separated from each other as they are from Europe.

Anthropology and genetics[link]

In modern usage, the term Eurasian usually means "of or relating to Eurasia", or "a native or inhabitant of Eurasia".^[2] However, it may also refer to a person of both Asian and European parentage, especially in 'New World' countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States.^{[citation needed]}

West or western Eurasia is a loose geographic definition used in some disciplines, such as genetics or anthropology, to refer to the region inhabited by the relatively homogeneous population of West Asia, Europe and related areas, especially North Africa. The people of this region are often described collectively as West or Western Eurasians.^{[citation needed][original research?]}

Geography[link]

Located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Eurasia is considered a supercontinent, part of the supercontinent of Afro-Eurasia or simply a continent its own right.^[3] In plate tectonics, the Eurasian Plate includes Europe and most of Asia but not the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula or the area of the Russian Far East east of the Chersky Range.

Post-Soviet countries[link]

Single markets in European and post Soviet countries; European Economic Area and Common Economic Space

Eurasia is also sometimes used in geopolitics to refer to organizations of or affairs concerning the post-Soviet states, in particular Russia, the Central Asian republics, and the Transcaucasian republics^{[citation needed]}. A prominent example of this usage is in the name of the Eurasian Economic Community, the organization including Kazakhstan, Russia, and some of their neighbors, and headquartered in Moscow and Astana.

The word "Eurasia" is often used in Kazakhstan as the name of the continent or region in which that country is located. Numerous institutions in that country use it in their name, e.g., L. N. Gumilev Eurasian National University (Kazakh: Л. Н. Гумилёв атындағы Еуразия Ұлттық университеті; Russian: Евразийский Национальный университет имени Л. Н. Гумилёва)^[4] (Lev Gumilev's Eurasianism ideas having been popularized in Kazakhstan by Olzhas Suleimenov), the Eurasian Media Forum,^[5] the Eurasian Culture Foundation (Russian: Евразийский фонд культуры), the Eurasian Development Bank (Russian: Евразийский банк развития),^[6] or the Eurasian Bank.^[7] In 2007, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed that a "Eurasia Canal" be built to connect the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea via the Kuma-Manych Depression in Russia, providing Kazakhstan and other Caspian-basin countries with a more efficient access path to the ocean than the existing Volga-Don Canal.^[8] This usage is somewhat analogous to the U.S. usage of the term Western Hemisphere when referring to the concepts and organizations dealing with the Americas (e.g., Council on Hemispheric Affairs or Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).

Use in fiction[link]

This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience. Please help relocate any relevant information, and remove excessive detail that may be against Wikipedia inclusion policy. (November 2008)

Eurasia is a fictional country, state or supranational entity appearing in several works of speculative fiction, including books, movies, television series and video games:

• A Eurasia comprising approximately the same land area as the real-life landmass appears in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. This superstate excludes Britain and Ireland (both controlled by Oceania) and Eastasia, the latter of which was formed after a 'decade of confused fighting' by an alliance of the states of the real-life East Asia region, the most important three being Korea, China and Japan. India was a contested border zone between Eurasia and Oceania and was the most famous state involved.
• Robert A. Heinlein's story Solution Unsatisfactory, written in 1940, describes a future 1945 (now to be considered an alternate history) in which the Soviet Union is transformed into the 'Eurasian Union'.
• In S. M. Stirling's dystopian Draka alternative history series, the analogue to World War II is known as "The Eurasian War". Somewhat similar in its geography to Orwell's scenario, the war ends with most of Eurasia—excluding the British Isles, India and southeast Asia—being conquered by the extremely oppressive Draka who literally enslave everybody else.
• In the universe of the Earth game series (Earth 2140, Earth 2150, Earth 2160), one of the major factions is the Eurasian Dynasty.
• Eurasia is a large and powerful terrestrial state and member of the Earth Alliance in the Cosmic Era series of the anime franchise Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.
• Eurasia is also used as the name of the fictional space colony that X and Zero must stop from colliding with Earth in the video game Mega Man X5.
• Eurasia is also the name of the super-state in the Japanese film Casshern. Unlike most other fictional "Eurasias" this one has more Chinese/Japanese motives than Russian, although Russian seems to be the official written language.
• In the 1980 animated film Animalympics, some of the athletes come from "Eurasia". Although not specifically noted in the film, the names and accents of these athletes suggest that "Eurasia" signifies the Soviet Union at the time. The Soviet Union was, by far, the largest country in the Eurasian continent at the time.
• "United States of Eurasia" is the title of a song by the British alternative rock band Muse from their fifth album The Resistance, alluding to the superstate found with George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four, from which the album draws inspiration.
• "In the book series Artemis Fowl, the protagonist's bodyguard Domovoi Butler is mentioned as Eurasian".
• "Kenshi from the video game franchise Mortal Kombat has some ancestry who belongs to Eurasia".

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	Asia portal
	Europe portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eurasia

Look up eurasia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• EurasiaNet
• Eurasia Group
• Eurasia Researchers Virtual Meeting

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vep:Evrazii

Jools Holland
Holland at the British Academy Television Awards 2009
Background information
Birth name	Julian Miles Holland
Born	(1958-01-24) 24 January 1958 (age 54) Blackheath, London, England
Genres	Boogie-woogie, jazz, blues, R&B
Occupations	Musician, composer, television presenter, bandleader
Instruments	Piano, keyboard, guitar
Years active	1974–present
Associated acts	Squeeze Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
Website	Official site

Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL (born 24 January 1958) is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze (1974-1980 & 1985-1990) and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Magazine and Bono.

Holland is a published author and appears on television shows besides his own and contributes to radio shows. In 2004, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music. He currently hosts Later... with Jools Holland, a music-based show aired on BBC2, on which his annual show Hootenanny, is based.^[1]

Life and career[link]

His great grandfather came from Ireland.^[2]

Holland played as a session musician before finding fame, and his first studio session was with Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1976 on their track "F*ck Off."^[3]

Holland was a founding member of the British pop band Squeeze, formed in March 1974, in which he played keyboards until 1981 and helped the band to achieve millions of record sales, before pursuing his solo career.^[3]

Holland began issuing solo records in 1978, his first EP being Boogie Woogie '78. He continued his solo career through the early 1980s, releasing an album and several singles between 1981 and 1984. He branched out into TV, co-presenting the Newcastle-based TV music show The Tube with Paula Yates. Holland achieved notoriety by inadvertently using the phrase "groovy fuckers" in a live, early evening TV trailer for the show, causing it to be suspended for six weeks.^[4] He referred to this in his sitcom "The Groovy Fellers" with Rowland Rivron.

Holland at the Tsunami Relief concert in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, 22 January 2005

In 1983 Holland played an extended piano solo on The The's re-recording of "Uncertain Smile" for the album Soul Mining. In 1985, Squeeze (which had continued in Holland's absence through to 1982) unexpectedly regrouped including Jools Holland as their keyboard player. Holland remained in the band until 1990, at which point, he again departed Squeeze on amicable terms to resume his solo career as a musician and a TV host.

In 1987, Holland formed The Jools Holland Big Band which consisted of himself and Gilson Lavis from Squeeze. This gradually became his 18-piece Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.^[3]

Between 1988 and 1990 he performed and co-hosted along with David Sanborn during the two seasons of the music performance program Sunday Night on NBC late-night television.^[5] Since 1992 he has presented the music program Later... with Jools Holland, plus an annual New Year's Eve Hootenanny.

In 1996, Holland signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records,^[3] and his records are now marketed through Rhino Records.

Holland has a touring band, The Rhythm And Blues Orchestra, which often includes singers Sam Brown and Ruby Turner. In January 2005 Holland and his band performed with Eric Clapton as the headline act of the Tsunami Relief Cardiff.

Personal[link]

Holland lives in the Westcombe Park area of Blackheath in South East London, where he had his studio, Helicon Mountain, built to his design, inspired by Portmeirion, the setting for the 1960s TV series The Prisoner.^[6] Holland owns costumes and props from the series and occasionally appears wearing the trademark brown-with-white-pipe blazer featured in the series. In 1987, Holland demonstrated his love of the series and starred in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry, Terence Alexander and Hugh Laurie.^[6] Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, with archive footage of Patrick McGoohan, and featuring musical numbers from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magnum and XTC. Holland performed a number towards the end of the program. His younger brother, Christopher, also plays organ in the Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, as well as being a singer-songwriter.

Holland was an interviewer for The Beatles Anthology TV project, and appeared in the 1997 film Spiceworld as a musical director.

He received an OBE in 2003 in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, for services to the British music industry as a television presenter and musician. In September 2006 Holland was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent.^[7] He is also known for his charity work: in June 2006 he performed in Southend for HIV/AIDS charity Mildmay,^[8] and in early 2007 he performed at Wells and Rochester Cathedrals to raise money for maintaining cathedral buildings.^[9] He is also patron of the Drake Music Project^[10] and has raised many thousands of pounds for the charity.

Holland was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University at a ceremony held at Canterbury Cathedral on 30 January 2009.^[11]

On 29 August 2005 Holland married Christabel McEwen, his girlfriend of 15 years (between 1983 and 1995 she had been married to Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham, before they divorced). The wedding, at St James's Church, Cooling near Rochester, was attended by many celebrities, including Ringo Starr, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Lenny Henry, Noel Gallagher, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.^[12]

Holland is also a patron for The Milton Rooms, an Arts centre in Malton, North Yorkshire, along with Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Kathy Burke.^[13]

Writing[link]

His 2007 biography, Barefaced Lies and Boogie Woogie Boasts was BBC Radio 4 "Book of the Week" in the week beginning 8 October 2007 and was read by Holland. He is the author or joint author of four other books.

Discography[link]

Albums that have charted and gained Certifications[link]

Releases[link]

• 1978 "Boogie Woogie '78" (EP)
• 1981 Jools Holland and His Millionaires
• 1984 Jools Holland Meets Rock 'A' Boogie Billy (U.S. release only)
• 1990 World Of His Own
• 1991 The Full Complement
• 1992 "Together Again" (single with Sam Brown)
• 1992 The A-Z Geographer's Guide To The Piano
• 1994 Solo Piano
• 1994 Live Performance
• 1996 " Jazz & Rock & Roll
• 1997 Lift The Lid
• 1998 Best Of
• 1999 Sunset Over London
• 2000 Hop The Wag
• 2001 Small World Big Band
• 2002 SWBB Volume Two: More Friends
• 2003 Jack O The Green (SWBB Friends 3)
• 2004 Tom Jones & Jools Holland
• 2005 Beatroute
• 2005 Swinging the Blues, Dancing the Ska
• 2006 Moving Out To The Country
• 2007 Best of Friends
• 2008 The Collection
• 2008 The Informer (With Ruby Turner)
• 2008 "The Informer" (single with Ruby Turner)
• 2009 "I Went By" (single with Louise Marshall)
• 2010 Rockinghorse

Film and television[link]

• 1981 Urgh! A Music War
• 1982 Police: Around the World
• 1982 - 1987 The Tube (Host for 121 editions)
• 1983 Rebellious Jukebox: Compere
• 1984 The Young Ones: Punk (Episode entitled "Summer Holiday")
• 1985 Walking To New Orleans (Jools Holland in New Orleans)
• 1987 Eat the Rich: Sun Reporter
• 1987 Filthy Rich & Catflap: Strip Show Pianist (Episode #1.3)
• 1987 The Laughing Prisoner: No. 7
• 1987 French and Saunders (Episode 1.5)
• 1988 Sunday Night: Host (unknown episodes)
• 1989 Juke Box Jury: Host (unknown episodes)
• 1989 The Groovy Fellers Himself, 6 episodes
• 1991 Mr Roadrunner (Jools Holland in Memphis)
• 1994 There's No Business: Pianist
• 1994 - 1995 Don't Forget Your Toothbrush
• 1995 The Beatles Anthology
• 1997 Spice World: Musical Director
• 1997 Name That Tune: Host and Pianist
• 2003 Jool's History of the Piano : Presenter
• 2006 Top Gear: Star in a reasonably priced car.
• 2007 Fairport@Forty: Interview
• 2009 Chop Shop Rover Concept: The Jet 1 Car : Customer

Current television programmes[link]

• 1992–present Later... with Jools Holland
• 1993–present Hootenanny

Books[link]

• "Rolling Stones": A Life on the Road, (with Dora Loewenstein), Viking/Allen Lane (1998), (ISBN 0-670-88051-5)
• Beat Route: Journeys Through Six Counties, Weidenfeld & Nicholson (1998), (ISBN 0-575-06700-4)
• Ray Charles: Man and Music, (with Michael Lydon), Payback Press (1999), (ISBN 0-86241-929-8)
• Hand That Changed Its Mind , International Music Publications (2007), (ISBN 1-84328-645-9)
• Barefaced Lies and Boogie-woogie Boasts , Michael Joseph Ltd (2007), (ISBN 0-7181-4915-7)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Jools Holland at the Internet Movie Database
• Jools Holland's Radio 2 show at BBC Programmes
• Later...with Jools Holland at BBC Online

Paul Revere
Portrait of Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley, c. 1768–70
Born	(1735-01-01)January 1, 1735 (O.S.: December 21, 1734) Boston (North End)
Died	May 10, 1818(1818-05-10) (aged 83) Boston, Massachusetts
Occupation	silversmith, colonial militia officer
Spouse	Sarah Orne (1757–73) (her death) Rachel Walker (1773–1813) (her death)
Children	8 with Sarah Orne (6 survived) 8 with Rachel Walker (5 survived)

Paul Revere (December 21, 1734 – May 10, 1818)^{[N 1]} was an American silversmith, early industrialist, and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride."

Revere was a prosperous and prominent Boston silversmith, who helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military. Revere later served as a Massachusetts militia officer, though his service culminated after the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, for which he was absolved of blame. Following the war, Revere returned to his silversmith trade and used the profits from his expanding business to finance his work in iron casting, bronze bell and cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes. Finally in 1800 he became the first American to successfully roll copper into sheets for use as sheathing on naval vessels.

Early years[link]

Paul Revere was born in the North End of Boston on December 21, 1734, according to the Old Style calendar then in use, or January 1, 1735, in the modern calendar.^[1] His father, a French Huguenot born Apollos Rivoire, came to Boston at the age of 13 and was apprenticed to the silversmith John Coney.^[2] By the time he married Deborah Hitchborn, a member of a long-standing Boston family that owned a small shipping wharf, in 1729, Rivoire had anglicized his name to Paul Revere. Their son, Paul Revere, was the third of 12 children and eventually the eldest surviving son.^[3] Revere grew up in the environment of the extended Hitchborn family, and never learned his father's native language.^[4] At 13 he left school and became an apprentice to his father. The silversmith trade afforded him connections with a cross-section of Boston society, which would serve him well when he became active in the American Revolution.^[5] As for religion, although his father attended Puritan services, Revere was drawn to the Church of England.^[6] Revere eventually began attending the services of the political and provocative Jonathan Mayhew at the West Church.^[6] His father did not approve, and as a result father and son came to blows on one occasion. Revere relented and returned to his father's church, although he did become friends with Mayhew.^[7]

Revere's dentistry tools

His father died in 1754, and Paul was legally too young to officially be the master of the family silver shop.^[8] In February 1756, during the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War), he enlisted in the provincial army. Possibly he made this decision because of the weak economy, since army service promised consistent pay.^[9] Commissioned a second lieutenant in a provincial artillery regiment, he spent the summer at Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George in New York as part of an abortive plan for the capture of Fort St. Frédéric. He did not stay long in the army, but returned to Boston and assumed control of the silver shop in his own name. On August 4, 1757, he married Sarah Orne (1736–1773); their first child was born eight months later.^[10] He and Sarah had eight children, but three died young, and only one survived, Paul.^[11] Revere would later remarry.

1765–1774: the gathering storm of revolution[link]

Revere's business began to suffer when the British economy entered a recession in the years following the Seven Years' War, and declined further when the Stamp Act of 1765 resulted in a further downturn in the Massachusetts economy.^[12] Business was so poor that an attempt was made to attach his property in late 1765.^[13] To help make ends meet he even took up dentistry, a skill set he was taught by a practicing surgeon who lodged at a friend's house.^[14]

Although Revere was not one of the "Loyal Nine"—organizers of the earliest protests against the Stamp Act—he was well connected with its members, who were laborers and artisans.^[15] Revere did not participate in some of the more raucous protests, such as the attack on the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.^[16] In 1765, a group of militants who would become known as the "Sons of Liberty" formed. Revere was one of them.^[17][18] From 1765 on, in support of the dissident cause, he produced engravings with political themes and other artifacts. Among these engravings are a depiction of the arrival of British troops in 1768 (which he termed "an insolent parade") and a famous depiction of the March 1770 Boston Massacre (see illustration). Although the latter was engraved by Revere and he included the inscription, "Engraved, Printed, & Sold by Paul Revere Boston", it was modeled on a drawing by Henry Pelham, and Revere's engraving of the drawing was colored by a third man and printed by a fourth.^[19] Revere also produced a bowl commemorating the Massachusetts assembly's refusal to retract the Massachusetts Circular Letter. (This letter, adopted in response to the 1767 Townshend Acts, called for united colonial action against the acts. King George III had issued a demand for its retraction.)^[19]

"The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th, 1770". Copper engraving by Paul Revere modeled on a drawing by Henry Pelham,^[20] 1770.

In 1770 Revere purchased a house on North Square in Boston's North End. Now a museum, the house provided space for his growing family while he continued to maintain his shop at nearby Clark's Wharf.^[21] Sarah died in 1773, and on October 10 of that year Revere married Rachel Walker (1745–1813). They had eight children, three of whom died young.^[22]

In November 1773 the merchant ship, Dartmouth arrived in Boston harbor carrying the first shipment of tea that would be subject to the taxes of the Tea Act. Revere and Warren, as members of the informal "North End Caucus", organized a watch over the Dartmouth to prevent the unloading of the tea. Revere took his turns on guard duty,^[23] and was one of the ringleaders in the Boston Tea Party of December 16, when colonists disguised as Indians dumped tea from the Dartmouth and two other ships into the harbor.^[24]

From December 1773 to November 1775, Revere served as a courier for the Boston Committee of Public Safety, traveling to New York and Philadelphia to report on the political unrest in Boston. Research has documented 18 such rides. Notice of some of them was published in Massachusetts newspapers, and British authorities received further intelligence of them from Loyalist Americans.^[25] In 1774, his cousin John on the island of Guernsey wrote to Paul that John had seen reports of Paul's role as an "express" (courier) in London newspapers.^[26]

In 1774, the military governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, dissolved the provincial assembly on orders from Britain. Governor Gage also closed the port of Boston and all over the city forced private citizens to quarter (provide lodging for) soldiers in their homes.^{[N 2]}

During this time, Revere and a group of 30 "mechanics" began meeting in secret at his favorite haunt, the Green Dragon, to coordinate the gathering and dissemination of intelligence by "watching the Movements of British Soldiers", as he would write in an account of his April 18, 1775 ride. Around this time Revere contributed engravings to the patriot monthly, Royal American Magazine.^[27][28]

He rode to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in December 1774 upon rumors of an impending landing of British troops there, a journey known in history as the Portsmouth Alarm. Although the rumors were false, his ride sparked a rebel success by provoking locals to raid Fort William and Mary, defended by just six soldiers, for its gunpowder supply.^[29]

"Midnight Ride"[link]

When British Army activity on April 7, 1775, suggested the possibility of troop movements, Joseph Warren sent Revere to warn the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then sitting in Concord, the site of one of the larger caches of Patriot military supplies. After delivering the warning, Concord residents began moving the military supplies away from the town.^[30]

One week later, General Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the rebels, who were known to have hidden weapons in Concord, among other locations, and to imprison the rebellion's leaders, especially Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Dartmouth gave Gage considerable discretion in his commands.^[31][32] Gage issued orders to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to proceed from Boston "with utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy... all Military stores.... But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property." Gage did not issue written orders for the arrest of rebel leaders, as he feared doing so might spark an uprising.^[33]

Between 9 and 10 p.m. on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told Revere and William Dawes that the king's troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the regulars' movements later that night would be the capture of Adams and Hancock. They did not worry about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord, since the supplies at Concord were safe, but they did think their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and to alert colonial militias in nearby towns.^[34][35]

In the days before April 18, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known. In what is well known today by the phrase "one if by land, two if by sea", one lantern in the steeple would signal the army's choice of the land route while two lanterns would signal the route "by water" across the Charles River.^[36] Revere first gave instructions to send the signal to Charlestown. He then crossed the Charles River by rowboat, slipping past the British warship HMS Somerset at anchor. Crossings were banned at that hour, but Revere safely landed in Charlestown and rode to Lexington, avoiding a British patrol and later warning almost every house along the route. The Charlestown colonists dispatched additional riders to the north.^[35][37]

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route, many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army's advance. Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"): His mission depended on secrecy, the countryside was filled with British army patrols, and most of the Massachusetts colonists (who were predominantly English in ethnic origin^[38]) still considered themselves British.^{[39] [40]} Revere's warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere's own descriptions, was "The Regulars are coming out."^[41] Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half hour later. They met with Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were spending the night with Hancock's relatives (in what is now called the Hancock-Clarke House), and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. They believed that the forces leaving the city were too large for the sole task of arresting two men and that Concord was the main target.^[42] The Lexington men dispatched riders to the surrounding towns, and Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord accompanied by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington "returning from a lady friend's house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m."^[35][43]

Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were detained by a British Army patrol in Lincoln at a roadblock on the way to Concord.^[35] Prescott jumped his horse over a wall and escaped into the woods; he eventually reached Concord. Dawes also escaped, though he fell off his horse not long after and did not complete the ride.^[44]

This Paul Revere Statue in North End, Boston was made by Cyrus Dallin and unveiled on September 22, 1940.

Revere was captured and questioned by the British soldiers at gunpoint. He told them of the army's movement from Boston, and that British army troops would be in some danger if they approached Lexington, because of the large number of hostile militia gathered there. He and other captives taken by the patrol were still escorted east toward Lexington, until about a half mile from Lexington they heard a gunshot. The British major demanded Revere explain the gunfire, and Revere replied it was a signal to "alarm the country". As the group drew closer to Lexington, the town bell began to clang rapidly, upon which one of the captives proclaimed to the British soldiers "The bell's a'ringing! The town's alarmed, and you're all dead men!"^[45] The British soldiers gathered and decided not to press further towards Lexington but instead to free the prisoners and head back to warn their commanders.^[46] The British confiscated Revere's horse and rode off to warn the approaching army column. Revere walked to Rev. Jonas Clarke's house, where Hancock and Adams were staying. As the battle on Lexington Green unfolded, Revere assisted John Hancock and his family in their escape from Lexington, helping to carry a trunk of Hancock's papers.^[47]

The ride of the three men triggered a flexible system of "alarm and muster" that had been carefully developed months before, in reaction to the colonists' impotent response to the Powder Alarm of September 1774. This system was an improved version of an old network of widespread notification and fast deployment of local militia forces in times of emergency. The colonists had periodically used this system all the way back to the early years of Indian wars in the colony, before it fell into disuse in the French and Indian War. In addition to other express riders delivering messages, bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires, and a trumpet were used for rapid communication from town to town, notifying the rebels in dozens of eastern Massachusetts villages that they should muster their militias because the regulars in numbers greater than 500 were leaving Boston with possible hostile intentions. This system was so effective that people in towns 25 miles (40 km) from Boston were aware of the army's movements while they were still unloading boats in Cambridge.^[48] Unlike in the Powder Alarm, the alarm raised by the three riders successfully allowed the militia to repel the British troops in Concord, after which the British were harried by the growing colonial militia all the way back to Boston.

War years[link]

Because Boston was besieged after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Revere could not return to the city, which was now firmly in British hands. He boarded in Watertown, where he was eventually joined by Rachel and most of his children (Paul Jr., then 15, remained in Boston to mind the family properties).^[49] After he was denied a commission in the Continental Army, he tried to find other ways to be useful to the rebel cause. He was retained by the provincial congress as a courier, and to print local currency, which the congress used to pay the troops around Boston.^[50]

A 12 pence bill printed by Revere in 1776

Since there was a desperate shortage of gunpowder, the provincial congress decided in November 1775 to send him to Philadelphia to study the working of the only powder mill in the colonies, in the hopes that he might be able to build a second one in Massachusetts. Revere called on the mill's owner, Oswald Eve, armed with a letter from Continental Congressmen Robert Morris and John Dickinson asking Eve to "Chearfully & from Public Spirited Motives give Mr. Revere such information as will inable him to Conduct the business on his return home."^[51][52] Eve showed Revere around the mill, but refused to give him detailed drawings unless he was first paid a substantial bribe. Despite this chilly reception, Revere was able to discern useful information from the visit. He also acquired, through the work of Samuel Adams, plans for another powder mill. This information enabled Revere to set up a powder mill at Stoughton (present-day Canton).^[51][53] The mill produced tons of gunpowder for the Patriot cause.^[54]

Revere's friend and compatriot Joseph Warren was killed during the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775.^[55] Because soldiers killed in battle were often buried in mass graves without ceremony, Warren's grave was unmarked. On March 21, 1776, several days after the British army left Boston, Revere, Warren's brothers, and a few friends went to the battlefield and found a grave containing two bodies.^{[citation needed]} After being buried for 10 months, Warren's face was unrecognizable, but Revere was able to identify Warren's body because he had placed a false tooth in Warren's mouth, and recognized the wire he had used for fastening it. Warren was given a proper funeral and reburied in a marked grave.^[56]

Militia service[link]

Upon returning to Boston in 1776, Revere was commissioned a major of infantry in the Massachusetts militia in that April, and transferred to the artillery a month later.^[57] In November he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and was stationed at Castle William, defending Boston harbor. He was generally second or third in the chain of command, and on several occasions he was given command of the fort.^[57] He applied his engineering skills to maintaining the fort's armaments, even designing and building a caliper to accurately measure cannon balls and cannon bore holes.^[57] The service at Castle William was relatively isolated, and personality friction prompted some men to file complaints against Revere.^[58] The boredom was alleviated in late August 1777 when Revere was sent with a troop of soldiers to escort prisoners taken in the Battle of Bennington to Boston, where they were confined on board prison ships,^[59][60] and again in September when he was briefly deployed to Rhode Island.^[61]

In August 1778 Revere's regiment served in a combined Franco-American expedition whose objective was to capture the British base at Newport, Rhode Island.^[62] His regiment was responsible for erecting and maintaining artillery batteries on Aquidneck Island.^[63] The attempt was abandoned by the French when their fleet was scattered in a storm, and Revere's regiment returned to Boston before the British sortied from Newport to force the Battle of Rhode Island.

Penobscot disaster[link]

The British in June 1779 established a new base on Penobscot Bay in present-day Maine (which was then part of Massachusetts).^[64] Massachusetts authorities called out the militia, pressed into service available shipping, and organized a major expedition to dislodge the British.^[65] The expedition was a complete fiasco: its land and naval commanders could not agree on strategy or tactics, and the arrival of British reinforcements led to the destruction of the entire Massachusetts fleet.^[66] Revere commanded the artillery units for the expedition, and was responsible for organizing the artillery train.^[67] He participated in the taking of Bank's Island, from which artillery batteries could reach the British ships anchored before Fort George. He next oversaw the transport of the guns from Bank's Island to a new position on the heights of the Bagaduce Peninsula that commanded the fort. Although Revere was in favor of storming the fort, Brigadier General Solomon Lovell opted for a siege instead. After further inconsequential exchanges, and disagreements on how to proceed between Lovell and fleet commander Dudley Saltonstall, Lovell, a decision supported by Revere, decided to return to the transports on August 12.

Late the next day British sails were spotted. A mad scramble ensued, and on the 14th the fleet was in retreat heading up the Penobscot River. Revere and his men were put ashore with their stores, and their transports destroyed. At one point Brigadier General Peleg Wadsworth ordered Revere to send his barge in an attempt to recover a ship drifting toward the enemy position. Revere at first resisted, but eventually complied, and Wadsworth told him to expect formal charges over the affair.^[68] The incident separated Revere from his men. Moving overland, he eventually managed to regroup most of his troops, and returned to Boston on August 26. A variety of charges were made against Revere, some of which were exaggerated assignments of blame^[69] made by enemies he had made in his command at Castle William. The initial hearings on the matter in September 1779 were inconclusive, but he was asked to resign his post.^[69] He repeatedly sought a full court martial to clear his name, but it was not until February 1782 that a court martial heard the issue, exonerating him.^[70][71]

Business and social connections[link]

During the Revolutionary War, Revere continued his efforts to move upwards in society into the gentry. After his failed efforts to become a military officer he attempted to become a merchant, but was hindered by a number of factors: while he was a fairly well-off member of the artisan class, he did not have the resources to afford the goods he would have sold as a merchant, nor were lenders in England willing to lend him the required startup capital. Other American merchants of the time collaborated with colleagues in England. However, Revere's inexperience as a merchant meant that he had not yet established such relationships and wasn’t able to communicate as effectively on unfamiliar matters. Another factor preventing Revere’s success as a merchant was the economic climate of the time period after the war known as the Critical Period; while the colonies had seen a time of economic growth before the war, the colonies experienced a severe post-war depression, constraining the overall success of his business.^[72]

While Revere struggled as a merchant, his success as a silversmith enabled him to pursue and leverage more advanced technological developments for the purposes of mass production. For example, flatting rolling mills greatly improved the productivity of his silver shop and enabled his business to move further away from manufacturing high-end customized products in order to focus instead on the production of a more standardized set of goods.^[73] In the 18th century, the standard of living continuously improved in America, as genteel goods became increasingly available to the masses.^[74] Revere responded particularly well to this trend because his business was not solely manufacturing custom, high end purchases. Rather, smaller products like teaspoons and buckles accounted for the majority of his work, allowing him to reach a wide audience with his works.^[75]

Revere's increased efficiency left financial and human resources available for the exploration of other products, which was essential to overcoming the fluctuating post-war economic climate.^[76] In addition to increasing production, the flatting mill enabled Revere to move towards a more managerial position.^[77] Artisans and other laborers were often unable to rise into the ranks of the gentry since they performed manual labor, in contrast with the gentry's higher emphasis upon intellectual work. But Revere's increasing product line and revenue stream allowed him to explore other materials and products, such as bell making, copper sheeting and creation of spikes, which opened even greater opportunities.

Later years: Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing, and Politics[link]

1813 portrait of Revere by Gilbert Stuart

After the war, Revere opened a hardware and home goods store and later became interested in metal work beyond gold and silver. By 1788 he had invested some of the profits from his expanding silverworking trade in the construction of a large furnace. He soon opened an iron foundry in Boston's North End that produced utilitarian cast iron items such as stove backs and window weights, marketed to a broad segment of Boston's population.^[78] After mastering the iron casting process and realizing greater profits from this new product line, he identified a burgeoning market for church bells in the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening that followed the war. Beginning in 1792 he became one of America's best-known bell casters, working with sons Paul Jr. and Joseph Warren Revere in the firm Paul Revere & Sons. This firm cast the first bell made in Boston and ultimately produced hundreds of bells, a number of which remain in operation to this day.^[79]

In 1794, Revere decided to take the next step in the evolution of his business, again finding a novel use for his furnace that could create a new product line and reach another untapped market for manufactured goods. Revere expanded his bronze casting work by casting cannon for the federal government, state governments, and private clients. Although the government often had trouble paying him on time, its large orders inspired him to deepen his contracting and seek additional product lines of interest to the military.^[80] By 1795, a growing percentage of his foundry's business came from a new product, copper bolts, spikes, and other fittings that he sold to merchants and the Boston naval yard for ship construction. In 1801, Revere became a pioneer in the production of rolled copper, opening North America's first copper mill south of Boston in Canton. Copper from the Revere Copper Company was used to cover the original wooden dome of the Massachusetts State House in 1802. His copper and brass works eventually grew, through sale and corporate merger, into a large corporation, Revere Copper and Brass, Inc.^[81]

Revere remained politically active throughout his life. Revere's business plans in the late 1780s were often stymied by a shortage of adequate money in circulation. Alexander Hamilton's national policies regarding banks and industrialization exactly matched his dreams, and he became an ardent Federalist committed to building a robust economy and a powerful nation. He continued to participate in local discussions of political issues even after his retirement in 1811, and in 1814 circulated a petition offering the government the services of Boston's artisans in protecting Boston during the War of 1812.^[82] Revere died on May 10, 1818, at the age of 83, at his home on Charter Street in Boston.^[83] He is buried in the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.^[84]

Legacy[link]

Revere on 1958 U.S. stamp.

Paul Revere's grave site in the Granary Burying Ground

After Paul Revere's death, the family business was taken over by his oldest surviving son, Joseph Warren Revere.^[85] The copper works founded in 1801 continues today as the Revere Copper Company, with manufacturing divisions in Rome, New York and New Bedford, Massachusetts.^[86]

A 25-cent 1958 U.S. postage stamp in the Liberty Series honors Paul Revere, featuring the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. He also appears on the $5,000 Series EE U.S. Savings Bond.^[87]

Revere's original silverware, engravings, and other works are highly regarded today, and can be found on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston^[88] and other museums.

The communities of Revere, Massachusetts^[89] and Revere, Minnesota^[90] bear his name, as do Revere Beach^[89] in Revere, Massachusetts, Revere Avenue in The Bronx, New York City,^[91] and Paul Revere Road in Arlington Heights in Arlington, Massachusetts.^[92]

Ride[link]

In 1861, over 40 years after Revere's death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the midnight ride the subject of his poem "Paul Revere's Ride," which opens:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year

Longfellow's poem is not historically accurate, but his "mistakes" were deliberate. He had researched the historical event, using such works as George Bancroft's History of the United States, but he manipulated the facts for poetic effect.^[93] He was purposely trying to create American legends, much as he did with works like The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).^[94] Longfellow was successful in creating a legend: Revere's stature rose significantly in the years following the poem's publication.^[95]

Parts of the ride route in Massachusetts are now posted with signs marked "Revere's Ride". The route follows Main Street in Charlestown, Broadway and Main Street in Somerville, Main Street and High Street in Medford, Medford Street to Arlington center, and Massachusetts Avenue the rest of the way through Lexington and into Lincoln. Revere's ride is reenacted annually.^[92]

See also[link]

• Israel Bissell, who rode to Philadelphia to warn the colonists there
• Sybil Ludington, who performed a similar ride in New York
• Jack Jouett, rode to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of a British raid
• Laura Secord, "Canada's Paul Revere" in the War of 1812
• Revere Bells, one of Revere's highest profile products
• Revere Copper Company, the business founded by Paul Revere and later managed by his son and grandsons
• Johnny Tremain, 1943 children's novel by Esther Forbes set in Boston prior to and during the outbreak of the Revolution

References[link]

Notes[link]

Citations[link]