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Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was a movement focused on freedom of speech, freedom of press, equality, and religious tolerance. It produced books, inventions, scientific discoveries, and laws. The main influences for the American colonies to become their own nation was from the Enlightenment. -
French and Indian war
The treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian war,the American phase of a worldwide nine years’ war fought between France and Great Britain. As a result of the war, France ceded all of its North American possessions east of the Mississippi River to Britain. The costs of the war contributed to the British government’s decision to impose new taxes on its American colonies. https://www.britannica.com/list/timeline-of-the-american-revolution -
The Stamp Act
British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to help replenish their finances after the costly Seven Years’ War with France. Part of the revenue from the Stamp Act would be used to maintain several regiments of British soldiers in North America to maintain peace between Native Americans and the colonists.https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/stamp-act -
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty were formed in Boston, MA. They were a group of instigators and provocateurs in colonial America who used an extreme form of disobedience to intimidate loyalists and make the British government mad. Their first victory was dumping the British tea into the Boston harbor in Dec. 1773. That act pushed the colonies and the British to war. -
Townshend act
There were 4 acts, The Townsend acts were passed by the British parliament in an attempt to assert what it considered to be its historic right to exert authority over the colonies through suspension of a recalcitrant representative assembly and through strict provisions for the collection of revenue duties. https://www.britannica.com/list/timeline-of-the-american-revolution -
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.https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-massacre -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, 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. -
Intolerable Acts
in U.S. colonial history, four punitive 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 (1754–63). -
First Continental Congress Meets
The First Continental Congress meeting was held in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. It was comprised of delegates from all colonies who got together to organize colonial resistance to the parliaments coercive acts. They boycotted British goods unless the parliaments should take away the intolerable acts. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Battle of Yorktown was when General George Washington commanded 17,000 French and colonial troops to go against British general lord Charles Cornwallis and his 9,000 troops. Washington surrounded the British troops with combined forces. After 3 weeks, Cornwallis surrendered, ending the War of Independence on October 17th, 1781. -
Treaty of Paris Signed
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, ending the War of the American Revolution. Based on a1782 preliminary treaty, the agreement recognized U.S. independence and granted the U.S. significant western territory. -
Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention was to decide how America was going to be governed. They designed a government with a separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
A woman to Benjamin Franklin: "Well doctor, what do we have- a republic or a monarchy?"
Benjamin Franklin: "A republic if you can keep it" -
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Constitution is Ratified
In December 1787, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut were the first to ratify the constitution. Then Massachusetts after a compromise. After Maryland and South Carolina. Then New Hampshire which agreed that the government would start March 4th, 1788. The Bill of Rights was then ratified into the constitution. -
Bill of Rights adopted
The Bill of Rights were proposed amendments made by James Madison to win support in both houses of congress and the states. They were right-related amendments. The senate ratified 12 of the 17 that Madison made.
