Calendar of Historical Programs

Independent historian Gabriel Neville highlights the Revolutionary War service of a unique detachment of the Continental Army: the Eighth Virginia Regiment. In colonial America, thousands of German and Irish immigrants settled in Virginia’s western reaches. The Eighth Virginia Regiment was conceived to recruit them, and as they were sent into some of the hardest service of the war, only a few remained after the Siege of Yorktown. Drawing from his new book, Neville traces the lives of the immigrant recruits…

At the time of the American Revolution, the British Empire had colonies in India, Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific, Canada, Ireland and Scotland. The thirteen rebellious American colonies accounted for half of the total number of provinces in the British world after the Seven Years’ War. As much as the Revolution was an event in the history of the United States, the conflict was an imperial event produced by the upheavals of managing a far-flung set of imperial possessions during…

While the Continental Army’s commander-in-chief, Gen. George Washington, directed some of the army’s battles during the Revolution, his strategy for the most part was carried out—and most battles were won or lost—by his subordinates, the army’s major and brigadier generals, whose backgrounds, experience and abilities varied. Drawing from his new book, historian Douglas Branson explores some of Washington’s most colorful generals, including Hugh Mercer, Peter Muhlenberg, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Robert Howe and Horatio Gates, to show the relationships and…