Once upon a time, there was a king.  That king’s name was King George III.  He was the King of England.  He ruled 13 colonies.  The colonies liked it there for a long time.  But, when the King had a war, that’s when things started to get bad.  The King won the war.  He had to pay for that war against France.  He didn’t have enough money, so he made the colonies pay taxes on butter, coal and lots of other things.  But the one thing that they were most mad about was that he taxed the tea.  The colonists were mad, so the colonies stopped buying things.  King George just taxed the tea.  The colonies got so mad that some of the colonists went to the Boston Harbor and got on a ship that held the tea and threw all of the tea into the Boston Harbor.  Those colonists dressed up as Indians so they wouldn’t get recognized, or else they would go to jail.

Once the King found out, he closed the Boston Harbor.  Paul Revere tried to get past the ships, but the British started shooting cannon balls to warn them that the Boston Harbor was closed.  So the colonist’s ship sent a rowboat to the Boston Harbor.  It was foggy, but Paul Revere still got on his horse.  Paul Revere knew that the British were coming.  So Paul Revere galloped on his horse to the Old North Church.  When he got to the top, he said “One if by land, two if by sea.”  Then he went all the way down the ladders, down the stairs.  It took a long time to get down.  When he got down, he went on his horse and his horse started galloping to warn the colonists that the Red Coats were coming!  He kept on to each house, knocking on every door telling all of the colonists. But the Minute Men were awake, so were the Sons of Liberty.  Paul Revere went over the bridge, but he still had to go to one more house.  That house was known for its quietness, so he galloped to that house.  Once he got there he knocked on the door.  The housekeeper walked out and yelled at Paul Revere for waking John Hancock and Sam Adams.  But, Paul Revere told John Hancock and Sam Adams to come away because the British are coming and are going to capture John Adams and Sam Hancock.  “Okay,” the housekeeper said to Paul.

When John Hancock and Sam Adams came down, Paul told them that the British were going to capture them, and that they were going to take all of the weapons and use them for war.  So John Hancock and Sam Adams got on their horses and packed up the ammunition and put all of the weapons somewhere else.  It took them a long time to find a better hiding place, but they found one.  Some people say right when Paul got finished up in the Old North Church, he saw one lantern glowing up in the Old North Church, so he got on his rowboat and sailed through the river, but then he saw two lanterns glowing up in the Old North Church.  He saw a big boat in the big river and a couple of rowboats, but he just ducked.  When the British were gone, Paul got out of his rowboat.  When he got out of his rowboat, he rode his horse to the hiding spot where they hid the guns and got ready for war.

Some people didn’t want to have a war against England, and they hoped that the situation would come out peacefully.  But those people were wrong.  The Britsh were coming to have a war.  The people that wanted it to come out nice, it just couldn’t happen.  I mean, they had to do something about the taxes.  So they did.  All of the town got ready.  One thousand British they had to fight.  It was the most powerful country in the world.  They saw the British and said, “Fire!”  The British saw them and started to fire.  Paul won that war and that was how we got our name.