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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that proves there's more than one way to make history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're talking about a lesser

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Speaker 1: known milestone in the birth of the United States, the

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Speaker 1: day when Americans first changed their minds about who deserved

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Speaker 1: to be memorialized in public view. The day was July ninth,

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six. The Sons of Liberty tore down a

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Speaker 1: statue of British Monarch George the Third in New York City.

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Speaker 1: The statue had been installed six years earlier, at a

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Speaker 1: time when colonial Americans were still supportive of British rule.

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Speaker 1: The New York Assembly had commissioned the statue as a

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Speaker 1: kind of thank you to King George, whom they credited,

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Speaker 1: along with British politics William Pitt the Elder, with the

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Speaker 1: repeal of the widely hated Stamp Act. The statue itself

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Speaker 1: was the work of London sculptor Joseph Wilton, and its

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Speaker 1: pose is thought to have been modeled on a statue

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Speaker 1: of ancient Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, towering on a marble pedestal.

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Speaker 1: George the Third was depicted on horseback, clad in a

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Speaker 1: suit of armor, with his right arms stretched out in

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Speaker 1: front of him. There are no surviving contemporary images of

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Speaker 1: the statue, but we know from written accounts that it

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Speaker 1: stood about fifteen feet high on its plinth and was

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Speaker 1: made of solid lead gilded with gold. The statue was

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Speaker 1: dedicated on August sixteenth, seventeen seventy, in Bowling Green, a

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Speaker 1: small public park at the southernmost tip of Manhattan. There

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Speaker 1: were very few public sculptures in New York City at

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Speaker 1: the time, so the installation of the George the Third

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Speaker 1: statue was treated as a grand affair. At first, most

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Speaker 1: residents considered it a welcome addition to the landscape, but

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Speaker 1: as time went on and the colony's relationship with the

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Speaker 1: British Crown began to sour, many locals started to view

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Speaker 1: the statue with disdain. The likeness of the domineering monarch

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Speaker 1: suddenly felt oppressive, as if the statue's watchful gaze was

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Speaker 1: meant to keep the unruly colonists in line. The statue's

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Speaker 1: placement furthered that sense of alienation. It had been installed

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Speaker 1: facing the gates of Fort George, the headquarters of the

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Speaker 1: British troops stationed in New York prior to the Revolutionary War.

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Speaker 1: This meant that while the soldiers were greeted by the

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Speaker 1: face of their sovereign every time they exited the fort,

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Speaker 1: the locals walking south to Bowling Green saw nothing but

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Speaker 1: his horse's rear end. This perceived slight drew the ire

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Speaker 1: of some New Yorkers, and by seventeen seventy three, the

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Speaker 1: local Assembly had to pass an act to prevent the

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Speaker 1: defacing of the statue. Historians aren't sure what exactly happened

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Speaker 1: to spur the new law, but the need for such

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Speaker 1: legislation points to the growing discontent with British rule among

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Speaker 1: the colonists. The following year, calls for revolution intensified, and

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Speaker 1: militias from several different colonies began to gather in New

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Speaker 1: York in preparation for war. This eventually led British troops

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Speaker 1: to abandon Fort George, at which point George Washington and

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Speaker 1: his soldiers moved in next to Bowling Green. Despite several

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Speaker 1: objections from members of the Continental Army, the nearby statue

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Speaker 1: of George the Third was allowed to remain in place,

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Speaker 1: but once the Declaration of Independence was signed on July fourth,

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, everybody knew that the King's days were numbered.

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Speaker 1: The literal tipping point came just five days later, on

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Speaker 1: the evening of July ninth. New York's revolutionary spirit was

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Speaker 1: in strong form that night, as the newly adopted Declaration

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Speaker 1: of Independence had just been read aloud that day in

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Speaker 1: Lower Manhattan for the very first time. The document leveled

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Speaker 1: twenty six charges against George the Third, accusing him of

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Speaker 1: violating the rights of his American subjects. General Washington hoped

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Speaker 1: that hearing the declaration would spur every soldier to quote

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Speaker 1: act with fidelity and courage now that the revolution had

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Speaker 1: officially begun, but to many continental troops in attendance, the

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Speaker 1: best way to do that on that very night was

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Speaker 1: to rid the city of King George's likeness once and

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Speaker 1: for all. Just a few hours after the reading, approximately

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Speaker 1: forty Colonial soldiers and sailors slipped down to the Bowling

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Speaker 1: Green under cover of darkness. They scaled the statue with ladders,

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Speaker 1: tied ropes around it, and heaved with all their might.

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Speaker 1: The ropes snapped on their first attempt, but they held

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Speaker 1: fast on the second, and the statue tumbled to the

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Speaker 1: ground and broke to pieces. Witnesses reported that one soldier

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Speaker 1: beheaded the statue with an axe, while another chipped away

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Speaker 1: at the gold leaf that coated the statue's surface. The

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Evening Post later recounted the scene the following week,

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Speaker 1: proudly proclaiming that quote the equestrian statue of King George

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Speaker 1: the Third, which Tory pride and folly erected in seventeen seventy,

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Speaker 1: was by the sons of Freedom laid prostrate in the

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Speaker 1: dirt the just deserts of an ungrateful tyrant. George Washington

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Speaker 1: was far less approving than that, and although he commended

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Speaker 1: the soldiers for their zeal, he warned them against doing

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Speaker 1: anything that gave the appearance of disorder. Washington may have

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Speaker 1: objected to the act of tearing down the statue, but

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Speaker 1: he likely had no qualms with what happened to it afterward.

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Speaker 1: Once all the gold was stripped off the statue, its

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Speaker 1: various pieces were carted off to Litchfield, Connecticut, where they

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Speaker 1: were melted down and made into some forty thousand musket

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Speaker 1: balls to be used in the impending war. The irony

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Speaker 1: of this turn of events was not lost on New

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Speaker 1: York Postmaster Ebenezer Hazard, who gleefully pointed out that the

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Speaker 1: King's troops quote will probably have melted Majesty fired at them.

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Speaker 1: The bulk of the four thousand pound statue went to

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Speaker 1: the war effort, but some key pieces went missing on

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Speaker 1: their way to Connecticut. The head, for example, is thought

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Speaker 1: to have been sent back to England, though where it

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Speaker 1: wound up is anyone's guess. It's also believed that some

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Speaker 1: of the segments were pilfered by loyalists when the cart

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Speaker 1: driver stopped for the evening at a tavern. Among these

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Speaker 1: allegedly stolen pieces was the horse's tail, which was later

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Speaker 1: found in a Connecticut swamp along with several other pieces.

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Speaker 1: Nearly one hundred years later. Those recovered remnants, including the tail,

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Speaker 1: were purchased by members of the New York Historical Society,

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Speaker 1: and they remain in their possession to this day. Other

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Speaker 1: reminders of the ill fated statue still exist as well,

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Speaker 1: including several imaginative nineteenth century paintings depicting the monument's destruction,

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Speaker 1: and a full scale replica of the statue, which is

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Speaker 1: on display at Philadelphia's Museum of the American Revolution. The

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Speaker 1: original iron fence that surrounded the statue is still around

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Speaker 1: as well. It stands in Bowling Green, along with a

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Speaker 1: plaque commemorating the statue's dramatic fall. Although the statue's removal

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Speaker 1: was championed as a patriotic act for the next two centuries,

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Speaker 1: there are some in America today who might disapprove of

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Speaker 1: the New York Sons of Liberty's actions. They may argue

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Speaker 1: that a monument or memorial once erected should not be

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Speaker 1: removed lest history itself be erased. But what happened in

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Speaker 1: Bowling Green is proof to the contrary. George the Third

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Speaker 1: is no less remembered today because he doesn't have a

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Speaker 1: statue in New York City, and America's colonial past and

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Speaker 1: former ties to Britain have hardly been forgotten either. Tearing

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Speaker 1: down the statue of a once celebrated oppressor was a

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Speaker 1: moment of liberation for the people of New York. It

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Speaker 1: gave them a sense of closure on the abuses of

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Speaker 1: the past and helped empower them to face an uncertain future.

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Speaker 1: Americans today deserve a similar catharsis, and while we can

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Speaker 1: continue to debate the optics of tearing down statues, just

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Speaker 1: as George Washington once did, we shouldn't discount the symbolic

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Speaker 1: power of toppling an undeserving idol. At the time of recording,

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Speaker 1: the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of American Independence and

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Speaker 1: the fall of King George's statue is fast approaching, and

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Speaker 1: all these years later, the message that was sent that

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Speaker 1: night in Bowling Green still reverberates in the hearts of

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Speaker 1: many Americans today. This is not a nation of kings,

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Speaker 1: and through the vigilance of the people, it never will be.

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Speaker 1: I'm gay, blues gay, and hopefully you now know a

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Speaker 1: little more about history today than you did yesterday. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to keep up with the show, you can

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Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show,

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Speaker 1: and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free

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Speaker 1: to send them my way by writing to this Day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see

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Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another day in History.

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Speaker 1: Class