The Battles Of Lexington and Concord -- and Menotomy? (1775)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's April 1775. This day in 1775, the Revolutionary War is sparked when British troops enter the towns of Lexington and Concord. But later that same day there's a third battle in a third town that is often forgotten.
Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss what happened in the town of Menotomy, how the fighting there was much more brutal than in Lexington and Concord -- and why it has been written out of the tidy story of the Revolution.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to This Day, a history podcast from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:11.0 | This day, April 1775, it's April 19th, 1775, 250 years ago. We are in Massachusetts at the key moment in U.S. history. Paul Revere has ridden the night before, warning that British troops are coming to fight the colonial revolutionaries. We all know the story. Fighting breaks out in Lexington and Concord. There's a so-called shot herd round the world at the North Bridge, the British are repelled, |
| 0:38.0 | and the War of Independence is afoot. Classic, classic stuff. But it may be that there should |
| 0:44.4 | be a small coda to that story, another series of events on that same day, perhaps more |
| 0:49.5 | consequential, and a third town. So let's ask why the tale of the start of independence doesn't talk about |
| 0:56.5 | Lexington, Concord, and Monotomy. So here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter |
| 1:03.5 | Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. One answer might be that monotomy is just |
| 1:09.2 | a little harder to pronounce the Lexington and Contort. I'm just going to say it. It might just be that monotomy is just a little harder to pronounce. That's the big one. |
| 1:11.3 | I'm just going to say it. |
| 1:12.3 | It might just be that. |
| 1:13.5 | But I do want to get to this town and the fighting there and whether it actually was more consequential |
| 1:18.5 | than the ones that end up in the fifth grade textbooks. |
| 1:20.6 | But let's tell the story of how we at least get to the troops showing up in monotomy. |
| 1:27.1 | I mentioned Paul Revere. You want to pick up |
| 1:29.8 | the story there after Paul Revere does his fateful ride? Yeah. So I feel like, you know, I did not |
| 1:34.9 | grow up in Massachusetts, but this is like, if you did, these stories are part of like the fabric |
| 1:41.2 | of your lives. Like there's field trips that take you out to Lexington and Concord. |
| 1:45.4 | I've walked those fields many times before there's trails where you can sort of walk in |
| 1:50.4 | historical markers, if you will. |
| 1:53.6 | But it's during this time that, you know, the British had been planning to make this attack, |
| 1:58.6 | to try to find out where the colonists were holding their |
| 2:01.5 | arms and all of their supplies. Um, North Church plays a major role in this because they, |
... |
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