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French-Indian War
The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain gigantic territorial gains in North America, but disagrees over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution. -
Navigation Acts
The Navigation Act of 1763, also known as the Plantation Duty Act, required colonial ship captains to guarantee that they would deliver many goods to England or suffer financial problems. To do so, all goods not made in England had a duty and bond placed on them when the ship reached the colonies. -
Quartering Act
Quartering Act, (1765), in American colonial history, the British parliamentary provision (actually an amendment to the annual Mutiny Act) requiring colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns or villages. -
Stamp Act
The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. It was a direct tax displayed by the British government without the approval of the colonial legislatures and was payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency. -
Townshend Acts
To help pay the expenses involved in governing the American colonies, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which made taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. Nonimportation. In response to new taxes, the colonies again decided to discourage the purchase of British imports. -
Boston Massacre
On March 5, 1770, British soldiers shot into a crowd of rowdy colonists in front of the Custom House on King Street, killing five and wounding six. The Boston Massacre marked the moment when political tensions between British soldiers and American colonists turned deadly. -
Boston Tea Party
To protest British Parliament's tax on tea. "No taxation without representation." The demonstrators boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. The British government considered the protest an act of treason and responded harshly. -
Intolerable Acts (aka Coercive Acts)
The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord (aka “The Shot Heard Around the World”)
In this first battle of the American Revolution, Massachusetts colonists defied British authority, outnumbered and outfought the Redcoats, and embarked on a lengthy war to earn their independence. American victory.The following day, April 19, 1775, British soldiers and colonial soldiers met at the Battles of Lexington and Concord and fired the “shot heard around the world” and signified the start of the Revolutionary War. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress on July 5, 1775, to be sent to the King as a last attempt to prevent formal war from being declared. The Petition emphasized their loyalty to the British crown and emphasized their rights as British citizens. The Congress met according to adjournment. -
Second Continental Congress
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. -
Common Sense
Written by Paine less than two years after he emigrated to Philadelphia from England, Common Sense outlined the need for American independence. Paine presented his arguments in plain language that made political discussion accessible to colonists of all walks of life. -
Declaration of Independence
By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. This document served as the United States' first constitution. It was in force from March 1, 1781, until 1789 when the present-day Constitution went into effect. -
Daniel Shays’ Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion did not succeed. For many, the rebellion symbolized a fatal weakness of the national government under the Articles of Confederation. Because Congress had no power to raise money, it could not help the states pay off their war debts, which forced the states to tax their citizens heavily. -
Constitutional Convention (aka Philadelphia Convention)
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation.