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Navigation Acts
The Acts required all of a colony's imports to be either bought from England or resold by English merchants in England, regardless of what price could be obtained elsewhere. This was one of the major causes of the American Revolution. -
French and Indian War ends
The United Kingdom defeats France and their Native American allies, but the British drain their treasury so they force the colonists to pay their share. -
Stamp Act
Raise revenue through direct taxation of all American colonial commercial and legal papers, newspapers, pamphlets, cards, almanacs, and dice. It was aimed at meeting some of the defense costs resulting from Britain’s victory in the French and Indian War. This lead to an uproar in the colonies over an issue that was to be a major cause of the Revolution. -
Boston Massacre
A group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred colonists who were screaming at them and chucking objects like rocks or bricks. -
Tea Act
The act’s main purpose was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company, a key actor in the British economy. Their resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, in which colonists boarded East India Company ships and dumped their loads of tea overboard. Parliament responded with a series of harsh measures intended to stifle colonial resistance to British rule; two years later the war began. -
Boston Tea Party
American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. It showed Great Britain that Americans wouldn’t take taxation and tyranny sitting down, and rallied American patriots across the 13 colonies to fight for independence. -
The Coercive/Intolerable Acts
The Port Bill closed Boston until compensated. The Quarter Act sought to create a more effective method of housing British troops in America. British officials were to be trialed at Britain. This pushed the colonists to war with Britain. -
First Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a group of delegates who worked together to act on behalf of the North American colonies in the 1770s. The colonists came together in what came to be known as the Committees of Correspondence to discuss their rights and how to respond to the acts that they believed trampled on those rights. These committees began to work together to forge a cooperative, united approach. -
Lexington and Concord
The Massachusetts militia routed the British Army forces and were soon joined by militias from Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These militias would become the core of the Continental Army. On April 18, Revere was warned that British Army regulars were making their way to the towns of Lexington and Concord. This was known as, "The Shot Around the World." -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress met inside Independence Hall beginning in May 1775. They established a Continental army and elected George Washington as Commander-in-Chief, but the delegates also drafted the Olive Branch Petition and sent it to King George III in hopes of reaching a peaceful resolution. The king refused to hear the petition and declared the American colonies in revolt. -
Declaration of Independence adopted
The Declaration of Independence, formally adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announced the United States’ independence from Britain and enumerated to “a candid World” the reasons necessitating this separation. Today the Declaration stands as the best-known document of the American founding, describing not only the U.S. origin, but also its goals and values. -
Battle of Saratoga
"The Turning Point of the War"
America defeats the British army, which is what got France to sign a treaty and enter the war on America's side. -
Winter at Valley Forge
George Washington moved the Continental Army to their winter quarters at Valley Forge. Though Revolutionary forces had secured a pivotal victory at Saratoga in September and October, Washington’s army suffered defeats at Brandywine, Paoli, and Germantown, Pennsylvania. The rebel capital, Philadelphia, fell to Britain. By the time the army marched into Valley Forge on December 19, they were suffering from cold, hunger, fatigue, and low morale in the wake of the disastrous Philadelphia Campaign. -
U.S. Constitution Written
It was put forward in Philadelphia by James Madison – but the English political system itself was based on separate and competing branches, a monarch, a parliament of two houses and an independent judiciary. -
Battle of Yorktown
The outcome in Yorktown, Virginia marked the conclusion of the last major battle of the American Revolution and the start of a new nation's independence. This cemented Washington’s reputation as a great leader and eventual election as first president of the United States. -
U.S. Constitution adopted
Into this world the United States Constitution was born in September 1787. But it took until June 21, 1788 for the document to be adopted when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution. The Constitutional Convention, convened by Congress to address the flaws of the Articles of Confederation, had crafted an entirely new framework for governance the previous September.