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The Stamp Act
An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown.
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Boston Massacre
The name given to an incident that took place on March 5, 1770, in which five civilians were killed by British soldiers; it is one of the events that helped spark the American Revolution.
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Boston Massacre Trials
John Adams defends British soldiers in a colonial Boston court. Although highly controversial among his patriot peers, Adams’s successful legal defense of the soldiers preserves the integrity and legitimacy of colonial law.
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The "Tea Act"
A British law that actually lowers the price of tea in the colonies, but mandates it must be bought exclusively from
the British East India Company and carry a British tax. Colonists already suspicious of Great Britain’s maneuvers to extract “taxation without representation” object to the tax and boycott British tea, leaving it sitting aboard ships in Boston and other American harbors.
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The Boston Tea Party - https://youtu.be/t-9pDZMRCpQ
Colonists dressed as Mohawk Indians board British merchant vessels docked in Boston and throw their cargoes of taxed tea into the harbor. Great Britain imposes a series of laws intended to punish Boston by closing the port to commerce, quartering British troops in private buildings, and changing certain legislative and judicial policies to be more favorable to Great Britain and its official representatives throughout the colonies. These laws are known as the “Intolerable Acts". -
The First Continental Congress
Delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies convene secretly in Philadelphia to discuss their poor treatment by Great Britain and their rights as colonists. The Congress agrees to boycott British imports, petition King George III to redress of colonists’ grievances, and plan a second meeting. Many future Founding Fathers meet for the first time.
https://youtu.be/hbKHPLbuLw0
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Battle of Lexington and Concord
Video on the Battle of Lexington and ConcordThe first military engagement of the American Revolution, fought by a colonial militia of “minute men” against British soldiers outside Boston.
“The Shot Heard ‘Round The World” marks the point of no return for the American colonists in their struggle against what they perceive as the excesses of British rule. The issue must now be decided by war. -
Publication of Common Sense
Video on Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"Thomas Paine’s anonymously written pamphlet calling for complete independence from Great Britain.
By writing in passionate but plain language, Paine makes a powerfully compelling argument for independence from British rule at a time when many ordinary colonists are undecided on the matter. -
The Declaration ofIndependence
Video on the Declaration of IndependenceRepresentatives from all thirteen colonies ratify a formal document declaring independence from Great Britain.
Although it will be many more years before the laws and structure of the United States are established in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence marks the birth of the nation.
