Non Binding Letter Of Intent To Retire: Fill & Download for Free

It’s not even close to anything I’ve ever experienced in all my years raising money. Most of the time, the initial meeting happens through someone who makes the introduction. I’ve not had great luck with cold submissions. While I have pitched a group of investors, normally I’d send an executive summary, get a meeting, often with just one to three people representing the funding source. In that meeting, I do a recap of the executive summary they already have, hit the high points of the company, then I start answering questions. If they want more information, I leave the full business plan.How this differs from a program like Shark Tank is that it’s rare that someone immediately after a pitch says they are in, unless they are following a lead investor and just want to meet the senior team. In most cases, there is the initial pitch, that gets you to the next meeting, which is often on site, and that continues another discussion. Often they bring in an industry expert to review the company in a little more depth before writing a report for the funding source. Somewhere in there is a non-binding letter of intent and some general terms. Once they proceed after that, it’s a careful due diligence process, and that can go on for days if not weeks before there is an answer.I did have a meeting with a VC who came to meet me at our offices at the recommendation of another VC. He listened to our pitch, said he was in, and had a term sheet to us the next day. He was an extremely experienced VC and knew what he was looking for in the conversation. We hit the points that mattered to him and he was in. He became our best lead investor and a solid contributor.While in due diligence, the final agreement is negotiated, then it closes, and you begin to receive funding based on the terms of the deal. There are often problems in contracts, issues with the cap table or some point that has to be cleared up, so agreements are sometimes delayed pending some modifications from either side.Some VCs are easier to work with than others, so I’m sure more can share their experience. I’ve had a range of experiences with VCs, from outstanding to some of the worst imaginable. Don’t go with someone who has a shaky reputation for ripping off entrepreneurs. Stick with those who have a good track record for support.After I sold the company for a gain, I went back to that same VC six months later to get feedback about my work as CEO and to ask why he backed us in the first place. He said he knew he was making the right bet when we were fighting as hard as we were to hang onto our stock. He said it meant to him that we’d do everything we could to protect the shareholders and that’s all he needed. He retired ten years ago, and to this day, is still one of the best VCs the Seattle area has ever had.

The Federal flag code says that you should not drape a flag over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle. Instead, “when the flag is displayed on a motorcar, the staff should be firmly fixed to the chassis or clamped to the right fender.”Background:The United States Flag Code establishes advisory rules for the display and care of the national flag of the United States of America. It is Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C. § 1 et seq).This is a U.S. federal law, but only suggests voluntary customs for the handling of the American flag and was never intended to be enforceable. The code uses non-binding language like "should" and "custom" throughout and does not prescribe any penalties for failure to follow the guidelines. You can compare it to what Americans often refer to as “norms”. The past few years have taught us that norms can be ignored, but it doesn’t condone one’s intent if ignored intentionally.Separately, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1968 (amended in 1989) (18 U.S.C. § 700), a since-struck-down criminal statute, which prohibits mutilating, defacing, defiling, or burning the flag. Although it remains part of codified federal law, it is not enforceable due to the Supreme Court of the United States finding it unconstitutional in the United States v. Eichman.The US American Flag CodeThe flag should never be dipped to any person or thing unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. This is sometimes misreported as a tradition that comes from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII; American team flag bearer Ralph Rose did not follow this protocol, and teammate Martin Sheridan is often, though apocryphally, quoted as proclaiming that "this flag dips before no earthly king."When a flag is so tattered that it no longer fits to serve as a symbol of the United States, it should be replaced in a dignified manner. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Scouts of America, TrailLife USA, the military, and other organizations regularly conduct dignified flag retirement ceremonies.The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.The flag should never touch anything physically beneath it.The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.It should never be used to festoon, drawn back, nor up, in folds but always allowed to fall free.The flag should always be permitted to fall freely. The only exception was made during the Apollo moon landings when the flag hung from a vertical pole designed with an extensible horizontal bar, allowing full display even in the absence of an atmosphere.)The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally.The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.The flag should never be upside down, except to signal distress or great danger.When displayed vertically against a wall, the union should be to the observer’s left

The causes of the American Revolution revolve around one central issue: taxation. I will also focus on some other issues though. This is going to be a very in-depth answer, so I hope you have the patience to stick around.1763You see, before 1763, British administration of the American colonies was very hands-off, and the colonies were allowed large degrees of autonomy, with most state functions (including taxation) being delegated to local assemblies such as the Virginia House of Burgesses.After the end Seven Years War in 1763, the new Prime Minister George Grenville had three major issues to deal with.How to defend Britain’s overseas holdings.How to check the colonists’ unceasing claims on Native American lands.How the fuck are we supposed to get money?The plan for point one was to have British regular troops man a line of forts from Canada to Florida, to protect the colonies from enemies on all sides. While this was ostensibly for the colonists’ protection, the colonists themselves felt like the troops were more of an occupation force. Their thought process was “Well, we just won a war against the French, so the biggest threat to us is gone. Now you station troops in our lands?” The whole thing reeked of despotism, and the colonists didn’t like it one bit.The second point was addressed by George III, who announced the Proclamation Line of 1763, which was a line drawn down the Appalachian Mountains. It restricted the colonists to the east side, and left the western side to the American Indians. Unfortunately, all this really did was stir up resentment for Britain, as land was becoming a rarer and more expensive commodity in the colonies.The third point was the big one. Britain had accumulated over £120,000,000 in debt by the end of the war with the French. Grenville needed to pay for this somehow, so he resolved to raise taxes on the people of the empire. At this point, he did not tax the colonists too hard; he merely thought that they should send more tax back to the mother country than the meager amount they were currently paying in tax to the central government. So the Prime Minister passed the Sugar Act.1764The colonists had been evading the six pence duty on molasses by bribing the agents who were supposed to monitor it with one and a half pence, so they would keep quiet. Grenville thought that by cutting the tax in half, that the colonists would be encouraged to use their money for paying the tax, rather than bribing the agents tasked with collecting it. They were not expecting any sort of pushback whatsoever.They were wrong in this assumption. The formerly lax tax collectors were replaced with incorruptible and diligent agents. This made the bribery (yes, the colonists still planned to do that) nearly impossible, and the colonists were stuck with paying twice what they used to be able to bribe the tax collectors with. On top of this, the Sugar Act reached the colonies during a post-war economic recession. This further angered the colonists who had little money to spare.The colonists began urging Parliament to repeal the Act. Some did so on purely economic terms, but others began arguing that Parliament did not have the right to tax the colonies, because the colonists were not represented in Parliament. The idea that your property should not be unjustly taxed went all the way back to the English Civil Wars. Where property rights existed, there was liberty. Where property rights did not exist, tyranny reigned. The colonists believed that they had the right to not be unfairly taxed, because, after all, they were proud Englishmen.1765Grenville’s ministry didn’t really pay much attention to the opposition, and decided to go ahead with phase two of their revenue plan: the Stamp Act. It was a tax on paper. The paper would be distributed by officials from Britain, and it was required that most printed materials would be printed on the stamped paper. The act was scheduled to take effect November 1, 1765.Opposition to this Act was strong, however, and dissidence rang throughout the Thirteen Colonies. In the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry made his first appearance on the revolutionary stage with a vehement speech opposing Parliament’s taxes, and the next day, the Virginia Resolves were passed by the House of Burgesses. They stated, as follows:Resolved, that the first adventurers and settlers of His Majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other His Majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this His Majesty's said colony, all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.Resolved, that by two royal charters, granted by King James I, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all liberties, privileges, and immunities of denizens and natural subjects to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.Resolved, that the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, or the easiest method of raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax laid on the people, is the only security against a burdensome taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.Resolved, that His Majesty's liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony have without interruption enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such laws, respecting their internal policy and taxation, as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign, or his substitute; and that the same has never been forfeited or yielded up, but has been constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great Britain.Resolved, therefor that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.The Virginia Resolves (coming from the largest and most influential colony) circulated throughout the colonies during the summer, and many colonies passed similar resolves. The first signs of colonial unity began to show.In Massachusetts, the opposition took a more violent approach. An effigy of a stamp distributor was hanged from a tree, and when a sheriff tried to take it down, he was stopped by an angry mob. That night, a shoemaker led a crowd down to the stamp distributor’s offices by the docks. They smashed the offices to splinters. Then they went down to the distributor’s home, carrying the effigy. They beheaded it in front of the house, and then stamped it into the ground (hahaha, these guys are a riot). They then smashed up the distributor’s house, before retiring for the night.The next day, a delegation from the mob contacted the stamp distributor and said “Why don’t you just resign?” and the distributor said “Yeah, I think that would be good.”In August, the mob reconvened. They managed to get themselves very drunk, and decided to attack the house of the local governor, Thomas Hutchinson. They gave it the same treatment as they did to all the other houses they systematically dismantled. The destruction, however, was highly organized and disciplined. This stoic opposition to a law that wasn’t even going into effect for months shocked and startled the politicians back in Britain.Grenville was replaced by Lord Rockingham as Prime Minister in July, and Rockingham quickly started looking for a way out from under the policies of Grenville. In October, the Stamp Act Congress met in New York City, with delegates from nine of thirteen colonies in attendance. They met to discuss a joint response to both the Sugar and Stamp acts.They concluded that Parliament did not have the right to levy “internal taxes” (taxes to raise revenue), but that they did have the right to levy “external taxes” (taxes to regulate trade). At the same time that the Stamp Act Congress was meeting, the first signs of non-importation were brewing. Non-importation agreements would grow to become a crucial building block of colonial opposition to Britain.Parliament convened in December, but while they wanted to repeal the Stamp Act itself, they also wanted to assert their right to tax the colonies however they saw fit.1766By February, they had reached a decision. They repealed the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act, but they also passed the Declaratory Act. It stated that “[Parliament] ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.”Only a few colonial leaders really saw what the Declaratory Act foreshadowed. Mostly, celebrations for the repeal of the Stamp Act ran rampant throughout the colonies. In the first major showdown between the colonies and Britain, the colonies had won.1767Back in July of 1766, Rockingham had been dismissed as Prime Minister, and replaced by William Pitt, a strong advocate for the colonies. But Pitt was old, and frequently absent from Parliament. So his divided ministers battled it out for control. The most influential among them was Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend.He used his position to pass what are now called the Townshend Acts. These were actually five interconnected bills, but the most important to the American colonies was the Revenue Act. It stipulated import duties on commodities such as lead, paper, printer ink, glass, and tea. If you recall, the Stamp Act Congress had conceded that Parliament had the authority to levy external taxes for regulating trade: exactly the kinds of taxes stipulated in the Revenue Act. Well, turns out they were just saying that.A Board of Customs was formed to enforce the paying of these taxes, so even more British agents would be running around in the colonies (something the colonists had shown their dislike for). On top of that, the government agents would be paid with the revenue from the duties, rather than by the colonial assemblies. Before, the colonies had been able to exert a degree of influence over the agents, (they were paying them, after all) but not anymore.Charles Townshend himself would not live to see the blowback to his Acts, however, as he died in September 1767. The power vacuum left by his death was filled by some guy who you don’t need to know about because he’s not important. Opposition in the colonies was slow to get started as I mentioned, as everyone was still weary from the opposition to the Stamp Act.Opposition was somewhat muted, as the Stamp Act riots had been exhausting to the colonists and they didn’t have much energy to continue resisting. However, John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which began circulation in December, gave the colonial opposition a second wind. The letters reinforced the idea that Parliament did not have the right to tax the colonists at all, internal or external.1768By February, Samuel Adams had been able to drum up enough support in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to push through a petition to Britain to repeal the Revenue Act. He followed this up with a Circular Letter to the other colonies, urging them to send similar petitions to Parliament.While the news of the Circular Letter was making its way to Britain and back, the Board of Customs launched a series of attacks on John Hancock, both of which backfired. First, they sent an agent onboard one of his ships to search it. He went below deck where his search warrant did not extend; thus, he was thrown off the ship by Hancock, and his actions were upheld by a local court.The second attack was when the Board seized one of his ships and held it on a technicality. When the Navy tried to move the ship out of port, a mob coalesced and managed to stop Hancock’s ship from being taken away. The mob, like the one during the Stamp Act Riots, was disciplined and under control.Back in Britain, news of the Circular Letter finally reached Britain. The new Colonial Secretary had no way of knowing that affairs in Boston had already progressed to organized mob violence. He ordered the governor, Francis Bernard, to order the House of Representatives to rescind the Circular Letter or be dissolved.The House of Representatives voted 92–17 not to rescind. Bernard, in turn, dissolved the House.The merchants of the colonies were starting to get pretty pissed about the new taxes and custom agents, and they began discussing a new non-importation agreement. However, each city was afraid to make the first move, because they feared that if they did, that business would simply move down to the next city who didn’t join the agreement. Non-importation, it seemed, was an all or nothing kind of deal.Massachusetts proposed the first successful non-importation pact on August 1, which was to commence on January 1, 1769. New York and Pennsylvania quickly followed suit, and Rhode Island signed on too, with a little “persuasion-not-a-trade-embargo.”Remember the mob violence that took place over John Hancock’s seized ship? Well, the administration in Boston had called 4000 troops down from Halifax to keep the mob under control. The Massachusetts Assembly tried to reconvene, but were shut down by the governor. An unofficial convention of towns met in Boston a week later, to try to urge the governor to reconsider. It was ineffective however, and on October 1, British soldiers began disembarking onto the docks of Boston.The radicals in Boston decided to cease overt resistance, but there was still resistance. That was evidenced by the fact that the soldiers could find no one willing to rent them lodgings. It took them weeks to get suitable winter quarters in some leased warehouses.1769In Boston, tensions continued to boil between the civilians and the loitering soldiers, who were a constant pain in the neck for the commoner in Boston. They did all the things that soldiers do: get drunk, flirt with the girls, etc. All they did was stir up further resentment among the colonists for the central government in London.In the rest of the colonies, the non-importation agreement adopted last year was expanded to Virginia, and thus the rest of the southern colonies. George Washington (yes, that George Washington) and George Mason helped push the pact through the Virginia House of Burgesses.The Townshend Acts, like the Stamp Act before them, seemed to be becoming more trouble than they were worth.1770In January, George III finally relieved that one guy whose name doesn’t matter of his duties as Prime Minister, and replaced him with Lord North, who had previously been Chancellor of the Exchequer. This guy will be around for a while, so I no longer have to try to stick in awkwardly worded paragraphs about British politics.In Boston, an 11-year-old boy had been shot and killed in February, and a crowd of thousands turned out for his funeral, which was more a show of political force than in memorial to the boy. Over the next few weeks, tensions rose rapidly, with fights between civilians and soldiers a common sight on the street.On March 5, the culmination of months of frustration, anger, and brewing enmity finally took place. The Boston Massacre.A sentry named Hugh White was talking with some of his comrades near the Customs House, when a civilian made a joke about his commanding officer. He punched the guy in the face, and his comrades ran off, leaving him to deal with the mob himself. He backed up against the Customs House with his gun drawn.Captain Preston of the Customs House garrison quickly saw that the situation would not resolve itself, and led his eight soldiers through the crowd. He had them form a semicircle facing the crowd. Guns drawn.For fifteen minutes, taunts, heckling, snowballs, and ice rained down on the soldiers, who were growing more and more jumpy by the moment. Finally, a private at the end of the line was hit, slipped on ice, and when he pulled himself back up, he fired his musket into the crowd.The whole group of soldiers was soon firing into the crowd. 11 men were hit; five died, and six were wounded. The mob fell back, but was only dispersed when Thomas Hutchinson, the acting governor, promised a full inquiry, and Preston and his men were arrested the next morning.John Adams defended the soldiers in court, and he got almost all of the soldiers acquitted with his eloquent defense. A propaganda war was waged between the conservative and radical presses in Boston, each trying to spin the story to suit their own ends.The Townshend Acts were finally repealed in April 1770. However, Parliament opted to leave the duty on tea in effect. This was to keep in place the precedent that Parliament could, should, and would tax the colonists whenever they saw fit. This was a nice impasse, really. The colonists were free of Britain’s incessant money grubbing, and Parliament maintained their right to tax the colonies. This ushered in a period of relative calm.1771Not much to say here. Non-importation ceased, and both sides of the crisis seemed to think that this was the beginning of a return to normalcy.1772Nothing to report until June, when a ship called the Gaspee ran aground while chasing smugglers off the coast of Rhode Island. A mob of patriots quickly boarded the ship, seized it by force, and burned it. This was a sign that hostilities had not yet ceased.Remember when Parliament took the right to pay the governors away from the colonial assemblies? Well, that hadn’t been repealed with the rest of the Townshend Acts, and later that year, Parliament decided to expand this to all the judges in the colonies. The colonists were, of course, enraged at the judiciary becoming a mere puppet of the Crown. Committees of Correspondence were again formed to discuss a response.1773In January, Thomas Hutchinson started off the year by making things ten times worse. He made inflammatory declarations that Parliament’s authority was supreme, that the Committees were completely wrong and should never have convened, and, most significantly of all, he said that “no line can be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament and total independence of the colonies.”See, he thought that independence was so absurd even to the most radical of radicals that the supreme authority of Parliament would be the only logical option left to them. However, all he did with this statement was legitimize the small independence movements beginning to take shape.In May of 1773, the years of calm in the colonies finally ended, with Parliament passing the Tea Act. This act would allow the floundering British East India Company to import their tea directly into the colonies, totally bypassing the colonial merchants who made their living as middlemen.This shouldn’t have made such a large impact in the colonies, but then again, nothing else that Parliament did should have, so of course it had lots of opposition right off the bat. The greatest fear of the colonists was that this was only the start of other British companies being able to import directly into the colonies. This might be better for the consumer, but long-term, it would destroy the colonial economy, and reduce them to manual laborers harvesting raw materials.Around this time, some secret letters from Thomas Hutchinson and his conservative allies to someone in Britain were leaked by Samuel Adams and one of Benjamin Franklin’s friends. The letters contained explicit recommendations from Hutchinson that certain civil liberties be suspended in the colonies. These letters all but confirmed every conspiracy theorist’s wild theories, which, once regarded as nothing but wild speculation, now seemed like the truth.Opposition to the Tea Act spread through the port cities of the colonies. Spearheaded by John Dickinson, the Philadelphia merchants led a resistance campaign, and convinced the merchants of several major port cities to stop any tea from being unloaded.On November 28, the cargo ship Dartmouth arrived in Boston, carrying assorted cargo. Among that cargo: East India Company tea. They were planning to unload, take on some more cargo, and sail away. The Sons of Liberty, however, were not planning to allow the tea to be unloaded. Giant “public meetings” congregated in Boston daily, with a sole objective of preventing the Dartmouth from offloading its cargo. The mob gave the ship one choice: get the fuck out of here.The poor owner of the Dartmouth had no way of knowing that he wouldn’t be able to unload his tea, however, and so he requested permission from Hutchinson to leave. Hutchinson responded with “no, you haven’t cleared customs yet.” But of course, to do that… the cargo had to be unloaded, and the owner couldn’t exactly do that. So this poor owner is stuck in the middle of the conflict between Hutchinson and the Sons of Liberty, and has no way of getting out.The Sons of Liberty, out of necessity, began considering drastic measures. There was a law stipulating that if a ship spent 20 days in port without paying customs, the ship would be seized and have its cargo unloaded. They couldn’t have that, of course. Just as the Sons were considering their options, two more tea-carrying ships sailed into port.On December 16, a public meeting was convened, where it was decided that the Sons of Liberty would board the ships and dump the tea into the ocean. So, of course, that’s what they did. 90,000 pounds of tea was dumped into Boston Harbor. This would become known as the Boston Tea Party.1774When news of this incident reached Parliament in late January… boy, were they pissed. They summoned Franklin to the Privy Council to defend the actions of his countrymen. They attacked him viciously and tore down his reputation. He stayed silent. After this incident, he swung decisively into the independence camp.In response to the Boston Tea Party, four bills were passed by Parliament between March and May, dubbed the “Coercive Acts” in Britain, but which were called the “Intolerable Acts” in the colonies.Boston Port Act: Trade in Boston was blockaded, and nothing but a few necessary commodities were allowed into the city. The blockade would remain in effect until the East India Company was reimbursed for the lost tea.Massachusetts Government Act: Massachusetts’ charter was taken away and the colony was placed under direct control of the British crown. Nearly all administrative posts would be appointed by the governor, Parliament, or the King.Administration of Justice Act: Royal officials accused of crimes could be tried in Britain if the governor ordered, and not by the local colonial courts.Quartering Act: The governor was given the authority to order civilians to house soldiers in their residence if suitable quarters could not be found.There was also another bill, technically separate but often lumped in with the previous four bills: the Quebec Act. This act extended the province of Quebec southwest down the Proclamation Line, and it cut off the colonies’ ability to expand further west.The colonists began to debate what they should do in response. There was divisive debate, but conservatives and radicals alike thought that representatives from all the colonies should meet and discuss a joint response.The First Continental Congress convened on September 5. 56 delegates from twelve colonies (not Georgia, they actually wanted British troops to help with an uprising) met at Carpenter Hall at Philadelphia. While they deliberated, meetings of the Committees of Correspondence in Boston passed the Suffolk Resolves on September 9. These resolves:Urged the citizens to boycott British goodsEncouraged the citizens to ignore the new taxes altogetherSuggested that the colonists acquaint themselves with the local militias, and be seen under arms at least once per week.The Resolves were endorsed by the Congress on September 17, which basically guaranteed that the radicals would be steering the ship from this point forward. The Massachusetts delegation felt secure enough in their position to propose a new step in opposing Britain: non-exportation.Debate was heated all through late September and October, but a blanket non-exportation pact was pushed through, with only two exceptions: Virginia would get to ship out its latest tobacco harvest, and rice would be exempted for South Carolina. Non-importation was scheduled to begin December 1, and non-exportation would begin September 10, 1775.The enforcement of the boycotts would be overseen by the Continental Association, which formed local committees to oversee that no one disobeyed the boycott. These committees would become a crucial part of colonial organization when the war finally broke out in the spring of 1775.The response in Britain was apoplectic, as Lord North began discussing plans for a continental blockade, to prevent the colonies from trading with anyone. Thomas Gage saw how badly the Intolerable Acts had backfired, and sent dispatches to Parliament urging them to repeal the Intolerable Acts. Parliament responded by sending three generals to act as his advisers, because they thought he wasn’t the best man for the job. These three generals, Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, would become the leaders of the British side in the coming Revolutionary War.1775On April 18, Joseph Warren received intelligence that British troops were on the move. This was confirmed by another source, and so Warren sent Paul Revere and William Dawes to Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that they were about to be arrested.Revere sent some men to the Old North Church to light a signal, so that there would be a horse for him on the other side of the Charles River. He arrived at Lexington around midnight, and he told Hancock and Adams to run the fuck away, before moving on to Concord with Dawes and another rider, Samuel Prescott.The three were ambushed by a British cavalry patrol on the road to Concord. Prescott and Dawes escaped, Prescott managing to ride on to Concord. Revere was captured, and told the British troops exactly who he was, what he was doing, and also that five hundred militiamen were massing in Lexington. (That was bullshit.)The British led Revere back to Lexington to test his bluff, but as they approached, they heard gunshots. They ran to inform the main British force that an army of militiamen was massing in Lexington.Revere raced back to Adams’ and Hancock’s house to check that they had gotten safely away, but was shocked to find that they were still just sitting around. With some more urging, they finally decided to leave, and were able to evade capture when the redcoats arrived in force the next day.The next day, the British regulars arrived in Lexington, and they had an intense staring contest with the militiamen. The commanding officer of the redcoats ordered the militiamen to disperse, and after a few seconds, they did.And then, someone fired a shot.No one knows who, and no one knows why.But one thing was for sure: The American Revolution was on.