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French and Indian War
This war was between Great Britain and France, also known as the Seven Years' War. The war began in 1754 and ended in 1763, with the Treaty of Paris. At the end of the war, Great Britain gained enormous territorial gains in North America. Both French and British colonists were trying to expand their land, causing conflict to arise. The Native Americans (Indians) joined forces with the British. Even though the British won, the war was very costly and the British began to tax the colonists. -
Treaty of 1763 (Treaty of Paris)
The signing of this treaty formally ended the Seven Years' War/ French and Indian War. This also marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside of Europe. This treaty was signed by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France, and Spain. Most all of the territories that were taken/stolen, were restored to their original owners. -
Proclamation of 1763
This was issued by King George II, following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War. This proclamation forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve. -
Committees of Correspondence
The American colonies' first institution for maintaining communication with one another. They were organized in the decade before the Revolution, when the deteriorating relationship with Great Britain made it increasingly important for the colonies to share ideas and information -
Stamp Act
An act that imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that materials, such as articles, legal documents, and other printed materials; to help pay for the war. -
Boston Massacre
British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. -
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
These were laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government. These acts included the Quartering Act, Quebec Act, Administration of Justice Act, Mass. Govt Act, and Boston Port Act. -
Lexington and Concord
These were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. -
Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in the battle. -
Publication of Common Sense
Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution, and became an immediate sensation. -
Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
Valley Forge
Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War. In September 1777, Congress fled Philadelphia to escape the British capture of the city. -
Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. -
Cowpens
The Battle of Cowpens was an engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781 near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina, between U.S. forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton, as part of the campaign in the Carolinas. -
Yorktown
Siege of Yorktown, joint Franco-American land and sea campaign that entrapped a major British army on a peninsula at Yorktown, Virginia, and forced its surrender. The siege virtually ended military operations in the American Revolution. -
Treaty of Paris 1783
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ending the American Revolutionary War.
