Lucy Worsley Investigates airs Sundays at 8PM beginning April 19

It was the break-up that gave birth to a superpower, and in this new series, historian Lucy Worsley is looking at the split from the other side of the Atlantic. On the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, Worsley dissects the explosive 18th-century rupture between Britain and its 13 colonies, asking the provocative question: could this war have been avoided?

The two-part investigation is packed with vivid, original evidence. In the first episode, Worsley takes us to New York’s City Hall Park, where the Declaration of Independence was first read to Washington’s troops—a rallying cry so potent that rebels tore down a gilded statue of King George III and melted it into musket balls.

The second episode reveals how the war’s chaos reverberated back in Britain. Worsley investigates a shocking arson plot to set the Royal Navy ablaze in Portsmouth and uncovers a web of transatlantic espionage. She traces Benjamin Franklin’s secret mission to Paris, the double-crossing of British spy Edward Bancroft, and the growing panic in London as France and Spain joined the fray. Concluding at the site of America’s first London embassy, Worsley reveals how this war didn’t just create a new nation; it fundamentally reshaped the old one.