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Navigation Acts
A series of laws designed to restrict England’s carrying trade to English ships. The measures, originally framed to encourage the development of English shipping so that adequate auxiliary vessels would be available in wartime, became a form of trade protectionism during an era of mercantilism. In the 16th century various Tudor measures had to be repealed because they provoked retaliation from other countries. -
French and Indian War ends
The Seven Years’ War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by France, Great Britain and Spain. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. -
Boston massacre
The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston. It began as a street brawl between American colonists and a lone British soldier, but quickly escalated to a chaotic, bloody slaughter. The conflict energized anti-British sentiment and paved the way for the American Revolution. -
Tea act
The Tea Act of 1773 was one of several measures imposed on the American colonists by the heavily indebted British government in the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War. The act’s main purpose was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company, -
Boston Tea party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. 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. -
Coercive/Intolerable Acts
in U.S. colonial history, four measures enacted by the British Parliament in retaliation for acts of colonial defiance, together with the Quebec Act establishing a new administration for the territory ceded to Britain after the French and Indian War. The cumulative effect of the reports of colonial resistance to British rule was to make Parliament more determined than ever to assert its authority in America. The main force of its actions fell on Boston, which seemed to be the centre. -
First Continental Congress
the Continental Congress served as the government of the 13 American colonies and later the United States. The First Continental Congress, which was comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in 1774 in reaction to the Coercive Acts, a series of measures imposed by the British government on the colonies in response to their resistance to new taxes. -
Lexington and Concord
hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. Many more battles followed, and in 1783 the colonists formally won their independence. -
Second Continental congress
The colonist meet the military threat of the British. It was agreed that a army would be created. The Congress commissioned George Washington of Virginia to be the supreme commander, who chose to serve without pay. The Congress authorized the printing of money. Before the leaves had turned, Congress had even appointed a standing committee to conduct relations with foreign governments. No longer was the Congress dealing with mere grievances. It was a full-fledged governing body. -
Declaration of Independence adopted
The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation’s people asserting their right to choose their own government.
When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775. The movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battle happened during the second year of the American Revolution. It included two crucial battles, fought eighteen days apart, and was a decisive victory for the Continental Army and a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War. It helped prove to France that the us as an independent country. -
Winter at Valley Forge
The six-month encampment of General George Washington’s Continental Army at Valley Forge was a major turning point in the American Revolutionary War. While conditions were notoriously cold and harsh and provisions were in short supply, it was at the winter camp where George Washington proved his mettle and, with the help of former Prussian military officer Friedrich von Steuben, transformed a battered Continental Army into a unified, world-class force capable of beating the British. -
Battle of Yorktown
British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and his army surrendered to General George Washington’s American force and its French allies at the Battle of Yorktown on October 19, 1781, it was more than just military win. 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. -
U.S. Constitution adopted
After three months of debate moderated by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution, which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. -
U.S. Constitution written
the United States Constitution is the world's longest surviving written charter of government. Its first three words – “We The People” – affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens.