Good morning and welcome back to Dave Does History, where the past is not dead, not even sleeping, and occasionally still smells like smoke.

Today we pick up the Liberty 250 series at the moment when grievances stop being theoretical and start leaving people homeless. Long before the Declaration was signed, long before independence was inevitable, British policy chose fire as its argument. Towns burned. Harbors closed. Governors ruled from cannon decks instead of capitols. And the colonies took notes.

This episode walks through the winter of 1775 and 1776, when Lord Dunmore’s choices in Virginia did more to unite the colonies than any speech or pamphlet ever could. Norfolk burns. Society fractures. Reconciliation quietly dies without a press release.

Jefferson would later compress all of this into one sentence. We are here to unpack what that sentence really cost.

History rarely announces the moment when compromise becomes impossible. It just lights the match and waits.