-
1765
the Stamp Act was imposed to provide increased revenues to meet the costs of defending the enlarged British Empire. -
1772
The revenue schooner Gaspee ran aground near Providence, Rhode Island and was burnt by locals angered by the enforcement of trade legislation -
1774
Called by the Committees of Correspondence in response to the Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. -
1776
After the Congress recommended that colonies form their own governments, the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and revised in committee. -
1780
US Defeat at battle of Camden -
1781
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 -
1783
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 -
1787
Adoption of the American Constitution