**HISTORY REPEATS? Dunkin’s Free Coffee Day Echoes 1773 — But With a Caffeine Twist**

HISTORY REPEATS? Dunkin’s Free Coffee Day Echoes 1773 — But With a Caffeine Twist

BOSTON, MA — History buffs are drawing surprising parallels between Dunkin’s nationwide free coffee giveaway on May 19 and a little-known 18th-century social experiment: the “Liberty Brew” of 1773.

While most Americans remember the Boston Tea Party, few know that colonial coffee houses offered free cups of coffee on May 19, 1773 — exactly 250 years before today’s promotion — as a symbolic protest against British tea taxes. “It was a caffeinated act of defiance,” says Dr. Eleanor Brewster, historian at the New England Historical Society. “They weren’t just giving away coffee; they were building a new national identity.”

Dunkin’s corporate team insists the May 19 date is a coincidence tied to National Coffee Day logistics, but viral posts are calling it a “caffeine reenactment.” @BeanCounterHistory tweeted: “May 19 = the original ‘No Taxation Without Caff-eination.’ Dunkin just forgot the protest part.”

With over 9,000 locations participating, the chain may be repeating history — minus the rebellion. As one Boston barista put it, “Today, we throw in a lid. In 1773, they threw in a revolution.”