War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello, welcome back to Key Battles of the French and Indian War, our survey of the

conflict that shaped the fate of two great empires and laid the groundwork for the American

Revolution.

I'm your host James Early, as always, and I am joined by my co-host, Jacob Herr.

As always.

Well, let's wrap up what we talked about last time in our previous episode, or rather,

I'll give you a quick summary.

So, in our last episode, we saw the British go out into the Caribbean.

They had been racking up victories on the continent.

Now they decided they wanted to get a little more greedy and take some of the French-held islands in the Caribbean.

They tried an attack on the island of Artinique, but the defenses were just too strong,

so they pivoted and moved on to Guadalupe instead.

And that island fell to the British.

They were able to take it, and they got lots and lots of economic boom out of that.

And then back on the continent, we saw that the British took several more French forts

and pushed them back further toward the north.

...