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Stamp Act
An act of the British Parliament in 1756 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown. -
Townshend Act
The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed, beginning in 1767, by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
Boston tea party
The Boston Tea Party (initially referred to by John Adams as "the Destruction of the Tea in Boston") was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773 -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. -
Second continental congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
Battle of bunker hill
On June 17, 1775, early in the Revolutionary War (1775-83), the British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts. Despite their loss, the inexperienced colonial forces inflicted significant casualties against the enemy, and the battle provided them with an important confidence boost. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775, in a final attempt to avoid a full-on war between the Thirteen Colonies, that the Congress represented, and Great Britain. The petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated the king to prevent further conflict. -
Common sense is published
On this day in 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. -
Declaration of independence
The Declaration of Independence is defined as the formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. -
Battle of trenton
The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal battle during the American Revolutionary War which took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey. After General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton the previous night, Washington led the main body of the Continental Army against Hessian soldiers garrisoned at Trenton -
Battle of saratogo
The Battle of Saratoga is often called the turning point of the war, because it increased the confidence of the French government in the American forces; France began sending aid the next year -
Yorktown
The last battle of the Revolutionary War, fought in 1781 near the seacoast of Virginia. There the British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army to General George Washington. -
Treaty of paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1783, negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, ended the revolutionary war and recognized American independence.
