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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. -
Boston tea party
Protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company, a party of Bostonians thinly disguised as Mohawk people boarded ships at anchor and dumped some £10,000 worth of tea into the harbor, an event popularly known as the Boston Tea Party. -
Intolerble acts
n 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. -
continental congress conveness
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. -
Lexington and concord
On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode from Charlestown to Lexington (both in Massachusetts) to warn that 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 sparked a skirmish that left eight Americans dead. -
Thomas paine
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. -
declaration of independence
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. -
winter at valley forge
Following failures at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, Washington and 11,000 regulars took up winter quarters at Valley Forge, 22 miles (35 km) northwest of British-occupied Philadelphia. Although its ranks were decimated by rampant disease, semi-starvation, and bitter cold, the reorganized Continental Army emerged the following June as a well-disciplined and efficient fighting force. -
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. -
battle 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. -
battle of 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. -
treaty of paris
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. The military verdict in North America was reflected in the preliminary Anglo-American peace treaty of 1782, which was included in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.