Meet the entire town in Wales that went ‘offshore’

On September 25, 1794, US President George Washington issued a proclamation authorizing the use of military force against a group of defiant citizens.

It had all started a few years before when a handful of politicians had succeeded in passing an excise tax on liquor, something that became known as the Whiskey Tax.

The Whiskey Tax was the brainchild of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who was under pressure to pay off the government’s debts from the Revolutionary War.

The thing is, much of the debt had been originally owed to soldiers who fought in the war. They had been paid in IOUs, many of which had been scooped up by bankers in New York for pennies on the dollar.

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