The Seven Years War (1756-1763) also known as the French and Indian War, was North America’s main entrance into the world’s first truly global war. Join University of Maryland historian and author Dr. Richard Bell as he tracks the shifting fortunes of several European forces, as well as their Native and colonial American allies, on American soil. We will examine the peace treaty that Britain and France finally signed in 1763 to bring this destructive war to an end and the peculiar legacy of American colonists’ involvement: how their participation reinforced a sense of themselves as essential partners in the British Empire, but also sowed the seeds of the imperial crisis that would culminate just 20 years later in American independence.