American Revolution: The British Army advances up the Charles River in Massachusetts to destroy supplies of American militias, while Paul Revere and other riders rapidly warn the countryside.

The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British rule to form the United States of America. The revolutionary era reached its zenith with the American Revolutionary War, which commenced on April 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The leaders of the American Revolution were colonial separatists who, as British subjects, initially sought greater autonomy. However, they came to embrace the cause of full independence and the necessity of prevailing in the Revolutionary War to obtain it. The Second Continental Congress, which represented the colonies and convened in the present-day Independence Hall in Philadelphia, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in June 1775. The following year, the Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, which served to inspire, formalize, and escalate the war. Throughout the majority of the eight-year war, the outcome appeared to be uncertain. However, in 1781, a decisive victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the British to negotiate the cessation of colonial rule and the acknowledgment of American independence. This was formalized in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, resulting in the establishment of the United States of America as a sovereign nation.

The British Army during the American Revolutionary War served for eight years of armed conflict, fought in eastern North America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere from April 19, 1775 until the treaty ending the war, September 3, 1783. Britain had no European allies in the war, which was initially between Great Britain and American insurgents in the Thirteen Colonies. The war widened when the American insurgents gained alliances with France (1778), Spain (1779), and the Dutch Republic (1780).

The Charles River, sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an 80-mile-long (129 km) river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles back on itself several times and travels through 23 cities and towns before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The indigenous Massachusett named it Quinobequin, meaning "meandering" or "meandering still water".