Episode Details

On the evening of February 6th, 1778, four men signed two treaties by a fire in a Paris apartment, and a colonial rebellion became a world war. This is the story of the French alliance — the single greatest turning point of the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin, once humiliated before the lords of England, stood in triumph at Versailles as the King of France recognized the United States and pledged his fleet and his treasury to American independence. In London, a panicked Parliament suddenly offered the colonies everything they had ever asked for, years too late, while King George III chose to fight the world rather than let America go. From the shattered army on Long Island to the frozen huts of Valley Forge to a treaty table in Paris, this is how the rebellion that fought alone stopped being alone — and how a family quarrel inside an empire became a war among the great powers of the earth, with a brand-new nation at its center.