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These Times History Took a Turn for the Batty

Khalid Elhassan November 3, 2019 34 min

16. Before They Fought George III, American Colonists Fought Charles I

The American Revolution’s biggest baddie was King George III, upon whom the Patriots pinned most of the blame for the conflict. Indeed, when one examines the Declaration of Independence and gets past the first few uplifting “We hold these truths to be self-evident” sentences, the rest of the document is one long screed, decrying his tyranny and infamies.

However, George III was not the first king against whom Americans took up arms: that distinction goes to king Charles I. Over a century before America’s War of Independence, American colonists took up arms against a king during the English Civil War (1642 – 1651).

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.