Nathan Hale was born on June 6, 1755, in Coventry, Connecticut (a British Colony at that time). He attended Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1769 to 1773, where he graduated with first-class honors at the age of 18. Before the Revolutionary War, Hale was a teacher in East Haddam, and then in New London, Connecticut, and he joined the Connecticut Militia shortly after the Revolutionary War began in April 1775. In July 1775 he was promoted from Corporal to First Lieutenant in the 7th Connecticut Regiment, and he was commissioned a Captain in the Nineteenth Regiment of Foot on January 1, 1776. Nathan Hale served as one of America's earliest spies against the British in the Spring of 1776, and he joined Knowlton's Rangers in August 1776. He volunteered to go behind enemy lines in New York City in September 1776, and he was captured and taken as a Prisoner of War by British forces on September 21, 1776. Captain Hale was executed as a spy the next day, on September 22, 1776, and his remains have never been recovered. As reported by several witnesses of his execution, in his last speech before being hanged, he uttered the words "I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country."