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French and Indian War
This war started in 1756, with the American colonies and Britain fighting against the Indians and French, with the American colonies needing help to win the war, Britain stepped in to help, putting them in some debt which later they used as a reason to tax us. This war ended later in 1763. -
Navigation Acts 1763
This was a series of laws imposed by Britain restricting the American colonies from trading with other countries besides Britain, mercantilism, which was aimed to boost Britain's wealth. -
Stamp Act 1765
The first internally imposed tax on the American Colonies, with every piece of paper needing a stamp, meaning you'd have to buy a stamp of a British salesman, meaning you're paying directly to Britain to use paper products, taxing the colonies. -
Quartering Act 1765
This is a blatant abuse of power from the king, making it mandatory that people in the colonies must provide food, drink, quarters(housing), fuel, and more to any British soldier stationed in their city. -
Townshend Act 1766-1767
This is the second and even bigger tax on the American colonies from Britain, marking a tax on all glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea products that they receive from Britain, with no other products coming in, and no choice, they're forced to pay the tax. After protesting and boycotting, they repealed the majority of the tax. -
Boston Massacre 1770
A street fight in between people of the colonies and the British soldiers on March 5th, 1770, turned into a bloodshed after soldiers opened fire on the unarmed crowd, killing Several people and injuring more. -
Boston Tea Party 1773
As a protest, 60 colonists dressed up in costume and dumped 342 crates of British tea off ships into the harbor to fight against the remaining tax on tea left from the repealed Townshend Act. -
Intolerable Acts 1774
Also known as the Coercive Acts, was a British made punishment to the colonists of Massachusetts for what they did during the Boston Tea Party, they shut down ports and appointed new British elected officials to run the area, this was a warning from the British to the other colonies to not be rebellious like Massachusetts. -
Second Continental Congress
With British at arms and tensions high, George Washington appointed a meeting of delegates on how the colonies would solve the issue of the British, meeting and eventually getting down to making a Continental army, in hopes of having a protection against the British, gathering arms and training soldiers. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The "shot heard around the world", with British redcoats and colonists at arms, with the British soldiers hoping to seize the colonists weapons, someone first a shot, the first shot, which started the battles of the day, one in Lexington, and one in Concord. This was the start of the war of the American Revolution. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was a final warning to the King before an impending declaration of war, stating their loyalty to the crown but also stating they still have rights, even as british citizens on a different continent. -
Common Sense
Thomas Paine wrote this in hopes to make it crystal clear to all colonists, with some of us at the time being on the fence still on whether or not we wanted full on independence from Britain, that the British were a big issue and we need to stride and fight for our freedom from them. -
Declaration of Independence
With the colonists fed up, they went and adjourned to discuss a formal complaint to the king, resigning their loyalty, announcing war on the crown, and demanding independence from Britain, George Washington, and a ton of other delegates met and signed the document written by Thomas Jefferson -
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Articles of Confederation
This was the loose confederation of sovereign states made after the Colonies declared independence from Britain, leaving a very weak central government and very strong states, made this way influenced by fear of another British like government to take over, written and adopted in 1777, and then defected out and replaced by the US Constitution in 1787. -
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Shays Rebellion
This was an uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and terrible economic conditions. Armed exsoldiers turned farmers forced the closing of several courts to prevent execution of foreclosures and debt processes. This was a wakeup call to the government, as they failed to swiftly and properly intervene in the protest, making it obvious that they needed to "fix" the Articles of Confederation. -
Constitutional Convention
Also known as the Philadelphia Convention, this was the lastage efforts to fix the AOC, with them at first wanting to just fix it, then after some time scrapping the AOC and starting from scratch, writing and making a new formal constitution, arguing from topic to topic, representation, rights, and power granted to the federal government over the states government. Coming to terms at the end with the Great Compromise, a Bicameral Legislature, with the House of Representatives and the Senate.