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1775Featured · This day in history
Second Continental Congress Convenes in Philadelphia
Three weeks after the shots at Lexington and Concord, delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies gathered at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775. They had no legal authority from the British Crown, no army, no navy, and no treasury — only a war already in progress. Within five weeks, they had appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of a Continental Army that did not yet exist.
Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall), PhiladelphiaStory page →
The American Throughline
The Second Continental Congress invented American national government from scratch: raising armies, issuing currency, appointing ambassadors, and ultimately declaring independence — all without a single line of authorizing law. The institutions it improvised, including civilian supremacy over the military and a legislative body empowered to direct a war, became load-bearing elements of the republic that followed.
Did you know
QWhy did Congress flee Philadelphia to a tavern in Baltimore — and how long were they gone?
In December 1776, with British forces advancing on Philadelphia after Washington's defeats in New York and New Jersey, Congress abandoned the revolutionary capital and reconvened at Henry Fite's tavern in Baltimore — described as the largest building in town, chosen partly because its location at the western edge of the city put it beyond easy reach of Royal Navy guns should British ships attempt to shell the harbor. Congress remained there until February 27, 1777, roughly ten weeks. The flight was a low moment: the Continental Army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men and Loyalist activity was surging across New York state. Washington's crossing of the Delaware and the subsequent victories at Trenton and Princeton happened during this same period, which is the only reason Congress had a city to return to.
QWhich colony sent only a single parish representative to the Second Continental Congress — and what was his voting status?
Georgia declined to send a full delegation when the Second Continental Congress opened in May 1775. Only St. John's Parish, in present-day Liberty County, sent a representative: Lyman Hall. Because he did not represent the entire colony, Hall participated in debates but was not permitted to vote. Georgia finally committed to the Congress in July 1775, when a provincial congress voted to send full delegates and adopt a ban on trade with Britain. It was the last of the thirteen colonies to do so, and its absence at the outset was a visible reminder of how far from unanimous the revolutionary coalition actually was.
QHow much of his total military budget did Washington spend on intelligence — and what did it buy him?
Throughout the Revolutionary War, George Washington spent more than ten percent of his total military funds on intelligence operations. The most famous product of that investment was the Culper Spy Ring, a six-man network built with the help of Benjamin Tallmadge after Washington was driven off Long Island in 1776 and concluded he needed to professionalize his information-gathering. The ring's work substantially improved the deployment of Continental regiments in the field. Washington's intelligence operation had begun even earlier: on August 12, 1776, he ordered Thomas Knowlton to form an elite reconnaissance unit — Knowlton's Rangers, which included Nathan Hale — making it the Continental Army's first formal intelligence unit.
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1775military
Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold Capture Fort Ticonderoga
Before dawn on May 10, 1775, 83 men crossed Lake Champlain in borrowed boats and walked into a crumbling British fort that barely knew there was a war on. Ethan Allen, leading the Green Mountain Boys alongside a fuming Colonel Benedict Arnold — who held a Massachusetts commission the men refused to honor — demanded surrender of the garrison. Lieutenant Jocelyn Feltham stalled for time; Allen reportedly answered that he acted "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." Captain William Delaplace surrendered without a shot fired, handing the Americans a stockpile of heavy artillery that would, months later, force the British out of Boston.
The cannons at Ticonderoga solved a problem Washington could not otherwise solve. Colonel Henry Knox hauled them three hundred miles through winter wilderness to Dorchester Heights, where they overlooked Boston Harbor and made the British position untenable — producing the first major American strategic victory of the war. The fort's capture also severed overland communications between British forces in Quebec and those on the Atlantic coast, a fracture in command that contributed directly to Burgoyne's catastrophe at Saratoga two years later.
Did you know
QWhy did Allen and Arnold attack with only 83 men when they had far more waiting to cross the lake?
The boats they had managed to procure could not carry the full force, and by the time 83 men had crossed from Hand's Cove, dawn was approaching and Allen and Arnold feared losing the element of surprise. Major Asa Douglas rowed back to collect the rest, but the two commanders decided they could not wait. The gamble worked entirely because the fort's lone sentry had a musket that misfired and ran rather than raise an alarm. Had the garrison been alert, 83 exhausted men in a ruined fort could have been a catastrophe. As it was, the remaining men arrived hours later to join a celebration already underway — including the plundering of Captain Delaplace's personal liquor stores.
QWhat happened to the British order to refortify Ticonderoga before the Americans arrived?
General Thomas Gage, writing from besieged Boston after Lexington and Concord, sent orders to Quebec Governor Guy Carleton to rehabilitate and refortify both Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The letter did not reach Carleton until May 19 — nine days after the fort had already fallen. It was one of the cleaner examples of how British command suffered from the lag of trans-Atlantic and inter-colonial communication throughout the war. Carleton, upon receiving it, immediately dispatched Major Charles Preston and 140 men to Fort Saint-Jean, which Arnold had already raided. The order to fortify Ticonderoga was, by that point, a letter to no one.
QHow did Allen and Arnold's rivalry over credit for the capture play out in the historical record?
It turned into a small war of documents. Arnold, unable to control Allen's men, began keeping a detailed diary highly critical of Allen's conduct, describing the Green Mountain Boys as 'governing by whim and caprice.' Allen meanwhile worked on a memoir of the events that, when published years later, omits Arnold entirely. The situation was compounded when Allen's ally James Easton allegedly lost Arnold's account on the way to the Massachusetts committee, ensuring Allen's glorified version received official attention. The rivalry that began at Ticonderoga prefigured the broader arc of Arnold's career: a man who felt credit was perpetually taken from him, and who kept meticulous score.
1946innovation
First American V-2 Launch at White Sands Proving Ground
Less than a year after 300 railroad cars of German rocket components arrived at Las Cruces, New Mexico, American engineers at White Sands Proving Ground assembled and fired a V-2 for the first time on American soil. The missile that had killed an estimated 9,000 civilians across London, Antwerp, and beyond was now a research instrument — its warhead gone, its guidance data translated from German engineering manuals, its builders working a few miles away under Operation Paperclip. The Cold War's rocket age had a test range.
White Sands Proving Ground, New MexicoStory page →
The American Throughline
White Sands became the proving ground where German ballistic missile technology was absorbed into American defense and space programs. The V-2 guidance equations handed to U.S. contractors during this period fed directly into the Atlas and Minuteman guidance systems, and the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel formed around these launches laid the organizational foundation for American manned spaceflight. The Redstone rocket — direct descendant of the V-2 — would eventually carry Alan Shepard.
Did you know
QWhy did V-2 technicians at the German launch sites keep delaying test firings — and what finally stopped them?
The V-2 ran on a 75% ethanol and 25% water fuel mixture, and the ethanol was palatable enough to drink. Technicians stole it regularly. Adding pink dye failed — workers filtered it out using potatoes. A purgative mixed into the fuel didn't stop the theft either; it just delayed launches while crews recovered. The Germans finally added methanol, making the fuel toxic. At least one man lost his vision and at least one died before the thefts stopped. The rocket that would define the missile age was briefly held back by its own fuel supply doubling as bootleg spirits.
QWhat happened to the V-2 that the U.S. Navy launched from the aircraft carrier USS Midway in 1947?
On September 6, 1947, the Navy attempted to launch a German V-2 at sea from the USS Midway as part of Operation Sandy — testing whether a ballistic missile could be fired from a carrier deck. The rocket cleared the pad but splashed down in the ocean only about six miles from the ship. The launch setup used foldaway arms to keep the missile upright until ignition, a detail that superficially resembled later Soviet R-7 launch architecture, though the mechanics differed. It remains one of the stranger images of the early Cold War: a Nazi vengeance weapon on a U.S. Navy flight deck in the Atlantic.
QWhat did a 17-year-old Austrian resistance member risk his life to send to the Americans — and what became of his group?
In 1943, an Austrian resistance group led by Heinrich Maier managed to pass exact technical drawings of the V-2 rocket to the American Office of Strategic Services, along with location sketches of V-rocket manufacturing facilities at Peenemünde. That intelligence was used to plan Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra, the bombing missions that preceded the Normandy invasion. The Gestapo gradually rolled up the group. Most of its members were executed. Their contribution to shortening the V-2 program's operational life went largely unrecognized for decades.
