43. The American Revolution: Does the Hamilton musical get its history right? (Pt I)

Part I of two episodes about America's fight for independence from Britain. We investigate how the hit musical Hamilton is teaching us history – but is it accurate?

And we have James's best American history jokes.

Next month, Part II will be a bumper episode - we have secured the rights to use full songs from Hamilton :) So, we will take a close look at what we can learn from them about history.

How are some questions to see how well you understand today's episode:

What does "democracy" mean? Who could not vote in the USA when it was first founded? What does "capitalism" mean? Who was king of Britain at this time? Why did the Americans want to be free from British rule? Who was allowed to vote and who wasn't in the new USA? Read industry reviews of Dad's World War II novels, A Chance Kill and The Slightest Chance, at paulletters.com. Available on Kindle, as well as in paperback. Dad's first wartime novel, A Chance Kill, is a love-story/thriller based on real events in Poland, Paris, London and Prague. The Slightest Chance follows the remarkable true story of the only escape from Japanese imprisonment by a Western woman during World War II.

Please rate and review us wherever you get podcasts. And share our podcast on social media and recommend it to friends – that's how we'll keep going.

We'll be back on the first Monday of next month!

Podcast cover art by Molly Austin

Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2016. Copyright © Warner Music.

All instrumental music is from https://filmmusic.io and composed by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Sound effects used under RemArc Licence. Copyright 2021 © BBC