This event was recorded at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2013. The summer of 1776 was a busy time for the American colonies. As the Continental Congress discussed an independent future, Britain sent a massive armada, which cruised menacingly off Staten Island in July. Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning biographer and historian, traces the chain of events that built momentum for the Revolution.