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1754–1763: 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 European phase was the Seven Years’ War.) As a result of the war, France ceded all of its North American possessions east of the Mississippi River to Britain. The costs of the war contributed to the British government’s decision to impose new taxes on its American colonies. -
March 22, 1765: Stamp Act
March 22, 1765: Stamp Act
Like the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act was imposed to provide increased revenues to meet the costs of defending the enlarged British Empire. It was the first British parliamentary attempt to raise revenue through direct taxation on a wide variety of colonial transactions, including legal writs, newspaper advertisements, and ships’ bills of lading. -
June 15–July 2, 1767: Townshend Acts
Townshend Acts were passed by 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 for the collection of revenue duties. The acts were resisted everywhere with verbal agitation and physical violence, deliberate evasion of duties, renewed nonimportation agreements among merchants, and acts of hostility to British enforcement agents, especially in Boston. -
March 5, 1770: Boston Massacre
March 5, 1770: Boston Massacre
In Boston, a small British army detachment that was threatened by mob harassment opened fire and killed five people, an incident soon known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers were charged with murder and were given a civilian trial, in which John Adams conducted a successful defense. -
March–June 1774: Intolerable Acts
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 (or Coercive) Acts: the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, and Quartering Act. Rather than intimidating Massachusetts and isolating it from the other colonies, the oppressive acts became the justification for convening the First Continental Congress later in 1774. -
September 5, 1774: First Continental Congress convenes (meets)
September 5, 1774: First Continental Congress convenes
Called by the Committees of Correspondence in response to the Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates represented all the colonies except Georgia. -
March 23, 1775 Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech
March 23, 1775: Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech
Convinced that war with Great Britain was inevitable, Virginian Patrick Henry defended strong resolutions for equipping the Virginia militia to fight against the British in a fiery speech in a Richmond church with the famous words, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” -
April 18–19, 1775: Paul Revere’s Ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord
Paul Revere rode from Charlestown to Lexington (both in Massachusetts) to warn the British were marching from Boston to seize the colonial armory at Concord. En route, the British force of 700 men was met on Lexington Green by 77 local minutemen and others. It is unclear who fired the first shot, but it left eight Americans dead. At Concord, The British were met by hundreds of militiamen. the British column was forced to retire to Boston. American snipers took a deadly toll on the British -
June 17, 1775: 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. Some 2,300 British troops eventually cleared the hill of the entrenched Americans, but at the cost of more than 40 percent of the assault force. The battle was a moral victory for the Americans. -
January 1776: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense published
In late 1775 the colonial conflict with the British still looked like a civil war, not a war aiming to separate nations; however, the publication of Thomas Paine’s irreverent pamphlet Common Sense abruptly put independence on the agenda. Paine’s 50-page pamphlet, couched in elegant direct language, sold more than 100,000 copies within a few months. More than any other single publication, Common Sense paved the way for the Declaration of Independence. -
July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence adopted
After the Congress recommended that colonies form their own governments, the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and revised in committee. On July 2 the Congress voted for independence; on July 4 it adopted the Declaration of Independence.