No, Palin's Wrong About Paul Revere: Experts

Author of book on revolutionary calls interpretation 'obvious blooper'
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 7, 2011 3:40 AM CDT
No, Palin's Wrong About Paul Revere: Experts
Sarah Palin gets in her car last week as she continues her East Coast patriotic tour.   (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

How can this be so complicated? Just as some historians are reluctantly backing up Sarah Palin's interpretation of revolutionary Paul Revere and his famous midnight ride, other historians are saying, no, she was wrong-o. "He didn't warn the British," as Palin said Revere did, according to James Giblin, author of The Many Rides of Paul Revere. "That's her most obvious blooper." Revere's "assignment that night was to go to Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were moving in that direction from Boston," explained Kristin Peszka, director of interpretation and visitor's services at the Paul Revere House, which Palin visited last week shortly after she offered her view of American history.

Revere spilled the beans about American weapons once he was captured by the British. But "he wasn't warning the British," Giblin tells ABC News, even though Palin said "part of his ride" was to warn them. "He was boasting about the capabilities of Americans. He was propagandizing." As for Palin's comment that Revere "rang those bells" to warn the Brits, Peszka insists: "People did ring bells that night. It was a common way of alerting people to come out. But Revere was not the person ringing the bells." The most troubling aspect of the affair is that it's "disconcerting to realize that no one seems to know what happened in this iconic event," said one historian. (More Sarah Palin 2012 stories.)

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