1773                 Documents in Year 1774                      1775


Links of Interest:

  • King George III, British Monarch over American Colonies

  • Exploration: Spain explores Northwest Coast

  • Explorer is Juan Perez (Northwest)
    Viola, Herman I, North American Indians, Crown Publishers, New York: New York, 1996

  • Westward Expansion:

    The Battle of Point Pleasant (the only major action of Dunmore's War) happens 10 October 1774 between the Virginia Militia and the Shawnee and Mingo Indians in the Ohio Valley (modern day West Virginia). William Vardeman II participates in the Battle of Point Pleasant. Vardeman is a private in Captain Campbell's Company and paid for 41 days of service. Future Shawnee Chief Tecumseh is a child at the time and his father, Puckinswah, is killed in the battle. The Shawnee lose and are forced to surrender the land south of the Ohio River to Virginia.

    Source:

    My Father, Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone

    This free ebook preview provides a major portion of an interview of Nathan Boone, the youngest son of frontiersman, Daniel Boone. He and his wife recollect interesting stories they knew about his father's exploits on the American frontier.

  • Science:

  • Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

    In 1774 Benjamin Franklin was "stripped of his cherished position as postmaster general in London for his role in inciting the colonial uprising." (See 1772)  Franklin and Priestly (see above) were good friends and met at London coffee houses with other scientists called "The Club of Honest Whigs" to compare scientific discoveries.
    Johnson, Steven. The Invention of Air. New York: Riverhead, 2008.

    Englishman, Joseph Priestly, (1733-1804), Discoverer of Oxygen

    Clergyman and experimenter. Priestly’s experiments in 1774 of a plant growing under a glass revealed  the atmosphere was restored inside the glass allowing mice to breathe longer than without the plant. “What Priestley was observing is dioxygen, otherwise known as “free oxygen” or O2, a molecule formed by the union of two oxygen atoms.”  Through his experiments on air Priestley found that "air is not an elementary substance, but a composition," or mixture, of gases." (Priestly) was the first to discover that breathable air was a concoction of plants, and with (Benjamin) Franklin’s help he was able to grasp and describe the far-reaching consequences that process would have on our understanding of Earth’s environment.

    He invented soda water, water suffused with carbon dioxide. The method earned the Royal Society's coveted Copley Prize and was the precursor of the modern soft-drink industry. His support for the American and French revolutions so enraged his countrymen that he was forced to flee England in 1794. He settled in Pennsylvania.

    Johnson, Steven. The Invention of Air. New York: Riverhead, 2008.

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