WHAT
THE
FUCK
you really are an idiot
Paul Revere stopped on his ride about 45 minutes in at a pub and when confronted by the Brits there...he gave up.
39 other people rode on the great lantern ride. Paul Revere got credit, seriously, because his name rhymed with "hear".
We think Paul Revere did all of these amazing things because of a poem written in the Civil War era to try and emphasize unity and patriotism.
William Dawes and Samuel Prescott get no credit, even though they rode further and did more. Granted, they were getting hammered too (and Prescott was trying to avoid going him to his wife at 1 am, which is the only reason he joined up), but they escaped from the British at the pub and kept riding after that.
There was no shouting "The British are coming, the British are coming!" this would have been stupid considering...you know...round about 1/5th to 1/4th of the country were loyal to the crown.
As for the second part
Young America is kinda cute. Like that rebellious kid who is rebellious for no real reason. You know all that "unfair taxation" we were having levied against us? For the longest time, no one was punished at all for not paying. It just wasn't worth the time for the British to really get on people for it.
Remember the French Indian Wars? The shit we started and had to beg to be bailed out by the British for? England got nothing out of that. They did it kind of as a favor. It cost them LOTS of money, to clean up out mess.
The Boston Tea Party was a drunken act of stupidity, that was covered up for later. It was prompted by Great Britain coming up with the Tea Act of 1773, which would give the colonists tea that was both cheaper and better than the tea they were getting from smugglers that were so prevalent at the time.
The British had NO idea that colonists were unhappy. The one guy who was really supposed to keep correspondence with the King REALLY liked the King. Ben Franklin was a long time supporter of the crown. Franklin even supported the Tax Act.
There was ONE FUCKING TAX we actually had to pay, primarily due to a peace keeping deal the British had after the fallout with the French Indian Wars, and we still bitched about that.
Don't get me wrong, glad it happened...but we really didn't have that much to complain about.