Oxonian - A graduate, student, or member of the University of Oxford in England

Inoculated - deliberately exposed to a disease in order to build immunity to it. In the eighteenth century, this usually meant variolation against smallpox: introducing material from a sore into a small cut in a healthy person’s arm. Edward Jenner’s safer cowpox vaccine did not appear until 1796.

“Peace be to her ashes” - an eighteenth-century expression of respect for someone who has died.

Shawmut Peninsula - the original landmass on which the city of Boston was founded in 1630.

Continental Congress - the governing body of representatives from the thirteen American colonies that coordinated the colonial response to Britain and governed the newly formed United States after the war.

Continental Association - adopted in October 1774, it banned the import of British goods starting December 1, 1774, and barred colonists from buying or using them. It also halted colonial exports to Britain starting in September 1775 and pledged an end to colonial participation in the slave trade. Local Committees of Inspection enforced compliance, while colonists were also urged to avoid extravagant entertainment and luxury such as the theatre as a show of unity and frugality.

Faneuil Hall - a meeting hall and marketplace in Boston, and a frequent gathering place for colonial protest.

The Blockade of Boston - the closing of Boston Harbor to shipping in 1774, under the Boston Port Act. This was in place until the tea destroyed at the Boston Tea Party was paid for.

Yankee Doodle - a song that began as an insult to colonists. British soldiers were singing it at colonial militiamen well before the Revolution — "doodle" meant simpleton, and the macaroni line mocked a backwoods rustic who imagined a single feather made him a London dandy. British regulars reportedly played it as they marched toward Lexington and Concord in April 1775. Then, on the bloody retreat back to Boston, the joke inverted. Americans seized the tune and sang it back, and it never returned to British hands. For the rest of the war it served two purposes at once: a plain, square melody that any teenage fifer could hold a marching column together with, and a standing act of defiance, daring the empire to keep using it.

Whist - an English card game.