"The shot heard around the world" may have launched the American Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord, but the colonists' discontent with the British crown had been simmering for more than a century. U.S. News & World Report takes a fresh look at the conflict that gave birth to a nation, including how a small band of rabble-rousers orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, how the defeat of the British at the Battle of Saratoga turned the war in the rebels' favor, and how George Washington's skill as a leader and a politician overcame his weaknesses as a military tactician. Plus: The sometimes surprising roles women played in battle, in military camps and on the home front The perils and challenges of revolutionary war medicine How the conflict divided families, including rebel leader Ben Franklin and his loyalist son, William The cautionary tale of Benedict Arnold, the honored patriot who turned traitor How colonists used their own means of "social networking" to foment revolution