George Washington's strategy was to draw the British redcoats deep into the continent, away from Britain's powerful navy and their ability to resupply and reinforce their troops.

Washington's troops did attack the British, but more as an incitement to draw them into the continent's interior than to push them into the sea.

George Washington never sent fighters into England itself.

Fighting the British in pitched battles using orthodox tactics would have been suicide, as would have defeating the British navy in the open ocean.

The sans-culottes, so called because they wore long pants rather than the britches associated with nobles, were some of the most enthusiastic and energetic French revolutionaries who formed the nucleus of the movement that stormed the Bastille and invaded Versailles.

Both the Guelphs and the Ghibellines were factions in medieval Italy at a time when the rule of the Church was a major political issue.

The Hashisheen were a semi-mythological sect of Muslim assassins.

The Red Guards were young Maoists during China's Cultural Revolution.

Liberalism and Nationalism are considered the major philosophical drivers of the French Revolution. Liberalism holds that the power of the government should reside in the people and that government should allow individuals responsibility for controlling their own actions. Nationalism calls for popular loyalty to focus on the nation rather than on one monarch or ruler.

The Tokugawa Shogunate is considered the last of Japan's shogunates and was replaced in 1868 by the imperial Japanese government under the Emperor Meiji. The opening of communications with Japanese society by Commodore Matthew Perry in in 1854 greatly changed Japanese society and converted the insular and isolationist nation into one fully engaged in global and regional politics.

Sepoys were Indian soldiers employed by the British East India Company, and because most Indians were either Hindu or Muslim, these soldiers were shocked and outraged to learn that their bullets were greased with fat from animals that their religions forbade them to eat. Bullet cartridges had to be bitten off, so the soldiers were frequently ingesting the fat without their knowledge. Their employment by the British East India Company shows that the British takeover of India was already well under way, as was the decline of Mughal rule. Queen Victoria was named Empress of India in 1877, decades after the rebellion had been put down.

Louis XVI originally called the Estates General because he needed its approval to raise taxes, which he hoped would help pay off France's military debts. However, the meeting of the Estates General turned into an airing of other public grievances over food shortages, the excesses of royals and nobles, and the unfair distribution of power among the Estates. The attack on the Bastille was the result of increasing unrest over these issues.

The National Assembly was established in 1789 by members of the Estates General, but a new constitution replaced it with the Convention in 1792. The Convention was then followed by the Committee of Public Safety, led by Maximilien Robespierre, until a five-man governing body called the Directory took control in 1795.

While both the American and French Revolutions established new governments, the American Revolution did so by casting off the government of another country, and the French Revolution did so by replacing the government in its own country several times. Both revolutions had a great deal of popular support, and both were greatly aided by intellectuals who disseminated Enlightenment ideas. Additionally, both revolutions were concerned about inequality in their governments, which was why the American colonists felt it was unfair to be taxed without representation.

Haiti gained its independence from France in 1804, following a slave revolt led by Pierre Toussaint L'Ouverture. Present-day Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela followed suit in 1811, after Simon Bolivar led a rebellion against Spanish rule. Argentina and Chile were liberated several years later in a movement led by Jose de San Martin.

Nationalism was a hugely important movement throughout nineteenth-century Europe, and this growing desire to unite regions with shared cultural identities led to the unification movements in both Germany and Italy; however, Italians found it difficult to define their shared cultural identity, whereas German identity was often rooted in memories of the former Holy Roman Empire. German unification was also a process undertaken largely by one man, Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck, while Italy united under King Victor Emmanuel II, Count Camillo Cavour, and national fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi.