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Event · Significance tier 3

October 18, 1775

Royal Navy burns Falmouth

A British naval force bombarded and burned much of Falmouth in present-day Maine after demanding arms and compliance from the town.

Category
armed conflict
Episode relations
1

Episode coverage

Episode 2

substantial · spoken: caption verified

Visual check: sequence context

Why this coverage: The film identifies Falmouth, reconstructs the ultimatum, bombardment, and torching, and follows the destruction into naval mobilization.

Caption entry: 00:44:14.985 · 00:45:08.639

Reviewed sequence context: ep2-cue-04-war-expands

Why it matters

The destruction widened fear that imperial warfare could punish coastal civilian communities and strengthened arguments for resistance.

Why this tier

Falmouth gave colonial audiences a vivid case of naval coercion beyond the Boston battlefield.

Evidence trail

  • episode-2-srt-local
  • pbs-episode-2-guide

Return to this event in the timeline

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