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The British army and navy, in a stunning display of global force projection and military logistics, invaded Brooklyn by sea and launched the defeat of George Washington’s army in New York City on this day in history, August 22, 1776.
“A naval spectacle of more than 90 vessels filled the Narrows [of New York Harbor],” wrote the late historian David McCullough in the book “1776,” his seminal work of the most formative year in the nation’s history.
The British during the American Revolution had occupied New York Harbor with a force of some 400 ships stationed off Staten Island earlier in the summer.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, AUGUST 10, 1776, DECLARATION OF IINDEPENDENCE REACHES LONDON
“Wave after wave of soldiers came on, their red coats and polished bayonets gleaming in the bright sunshine,” McCullough wrote of the landing at Gravesend Bay, in what’s now the southeastern corner of Brooklyn, just south of today’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
Battle of Long Island — Retreat of the Americans under General Stirling Across Gowanus Creek (1877). The battle (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn Heights) was fought on August 27, 1776, the first major battle of the American Revolutionary War to take place after the U.S. declared its independence on July 4, 1776. Engraving after a painting made in 1858 by Alonzo Chappel; from “Our Country: a Household History for All Readers, from the Discovery of America to the Present Time,” Volume 2, by Benson J. Lossing (Johnson and Miles, New York, 1877).
(Artist Unknown. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images))
“By noon a fully equipped Army of 15,000 men and 40 pieces of artillery had landed and rapidly, smoothly assembled in perfect formation on the adjacent plain.”
The British smashed George Washington’s forces in the Battle of Brooklyn Heights (also called the Battle of Long Island) just five days later, on August 27.
The general then led the miraculous evacuation…
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