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Poor Richards Almanac
Poor Richard's Almanac is published for the first of its twenty-six annual editions by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. It would sell as many as 10,000 copies per year. -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act taxed items sold in the British Colonies -
The Stamp Act
The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
The Townsend Acts
A series of acts that placed taxes on goods purchased by the British colonists. Britain was attempting to force taxes on the colonists as a way of helping pay for the cost incurred by the British -
The Boston Tea Party
Colonists revolted against the Tea Tax by dumping containers of Tea into the Boston Harbor -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that became the United States -
Paul Revere
Paul Revere warned of the British coming to confiscate guns. The battles of Lexington and Concord set the stage for the coming revolution. -
The Declaration of Independence
Continental Congress met and adopted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming us free from England -
Treaty of Paris
This ended the Revolutionary War and determined boundaries between British controlled land and the United States -
Shays Rebellion
An armed uprising in Western Massachusetts in opposition to a debt crisis among the citizenry and the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield -
The US Constitution
Delegates met and drafted the Constitution -
The First President
George Washington was elected president and inaugurated on April 30, 1789