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French-Indian War (1756-1763)
part of a worldwide war that took place between 1754 and 1763. It was fought between France and Great Britain. because of the war england was broke and begin to tax the colonies -
Common Sense
a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. -
Navigation Acts (1763)
promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods. -
The Quartering Acts
The Quartering Acts were several acts of the Parliament of Great Britain which required local authorities in the Thirteen Colonies of British North America to provide British Army personnel in the colonies with housing and food. -
Stamp Act
required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents. -
Townshend Acts
initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
seven British soldiers fired into a crowd of volatile Bostonians, killing five, wounding another six, and angering an entire colony. -
Intolerable Acts (aka Coercive Acts)
a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Boston Tea Party
To protest British Parliament's tax on tea. "No taxation without representation." The demonstrators boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord (aka “The Shot Heard Around the World”)
The Battle of Lexington was a very small fight. You could hardly call it a battle, but it's important because it's where the Revolutionary War started. When the British arrived, there were only around 80 American militiamen in the town. -
Olive Branch Petition
adopted by Congress on July 5, 1775, to be sent to the King as a last attempt to prevent formal war from being declared. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was the late 18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War, which established American independence from the British Empire. -
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, formally titled The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America in both the engrossed version and the original printing, is the founding document of the United States. -
The Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 states of the United States, formerly the Thirteen Colonies, that served as the nation's first frame of government -
Daniel Shays’ Rebellion
Shays's Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their trades. -
Constitutional Convention (aka Philadelphia Convention)
met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation.