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The 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. -
The Sugar Act
(1764) British deeply in debt partl to French & Indian War. English Parliament placed a tariff on sugar, coffee, wines, and molasses. colonists avoided the tax by smuggling and by bribing tax collectors. -
The Stamp Act
1765; law that taxed printed goods, including: playing cards, documents, newspapers, etc. -
The Townshend Act
A series of four acts, the Townshend 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. -
The Boston Massacre
The first bloodshed of the American Revolution (1770), as British guards at the Boston Customs House opened fire on a crowd killing five Americans -
Boston Tea Party
demonstration (1773) by citizens of Boston who (disguised as Indians) raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor -
The Intolerable Act
In retaliation for colonial resistance to British rule during the winter of 1773–74, the British Parliament enacted four measures that became known as the Intolerable Act. -
American Revolution
This political revolution began with the Declaration of Independence in 1776 where American colonists sought to balance the power between government and the people and protect the rights of citizens in a democracy. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The first military engagement of the Revolutionary War. It occurred on April 19, 1775, when British soldiers fired into a much smaller body of minutemen on Lexington green. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
Breed’s Hill in Charlestown was the primary locus of combat in the misleadingly named Battle of Bunker Hill, which was part of the American siege of British-held Boston. -
Thomas Paine's Common Sense
1776: a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that claimed the colonies had a right to be an independent nation -
Declaration of Independence
the document recording the proclamation of the second Continental Congress (4 July 1776) asserting the independence of the colonies from Great Britain -
Nathan Hale executed
On September 21, 1776, having penetrated the British lines on Long Island to obtain information, American Capt. Nathan Hale was captured by the British. He was hanged without trial the next day. Before his death, Hale is thought to have said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” -
Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga
Moving south from Canada in summer 1777, a British force under Gen. John Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga (July 5) before losing decisively at Bennington, Vermont (August 16), and Bemis Heights, New York (October 7). His forces depleted, Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. -
Battle of Valley Forge
General Wilhelm von Knyphausen led British soldiers on a raid of Valley Forge, where American troops had built a handful of storage facilities. -
Benedict Arnold turns traitor
Having fought valiantly in a number of battles earlier in the war, American Gen. Benedict Arnold conspired with the British to surrender the fort at West Point, New York, that he commanded. When John André, the British army officer with whom Arnold had negotiated, was hanged as a spy after he was captured and the plot revealed, Arnold took sanctuary with the British. -
Siege of Yorktown
After winning a costly victory at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, on March 15, 1781, Lord Cornwallis entered Virginia to join other British forces there, setting up a base at Yorktown. Washington’s army and a force under the French Count de Rochambeau placed Yorktown under siege, and Cornwallis surrendered his army of more than 7,000 men on October 19, 1781. -
The Articles of Confederation ratified
The Articles of Confederation, a plan of government organization that served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress and the federal government provided under the U.S. Constitution of 1787, were written in 1776–77 and adopted by the Congress on November 15, 1777. -
Battle of Yorktown
General George Washington, with allied American and French forces, besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis's British army. -
Treaty of Paris ends the war
After the British defeat at Yorktown, the land battles in America largely died out—but the fighting continued at sea, chiefly between the British and America’s European allies, which came to include Spain and the Netherlands.