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Begin French And Indian War
The American Indians were fighting to maintain control of their land and their cultural future. -
End French And Indian War
The American Indians were fighting to maintain control of their land and their cultural future. -
Navigation Acts
Acts of Parliament intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods.A -
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 Crown. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act stated that Great Britain would house its soldiers in American barracks and public houses. And if the soldiers outnumbered colonial housing, they would be quartered in inns, alehouses, barns, other buildings, etc. -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
Intolerable Acts (aka Coercive Acts)
The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord
Neither side expected to actually fight, but in the midst of the confusion a gunshot went off forcing the British to attack. Some of the colonists were killed and the rest fled. The gunshot was the first shot of the American Revolution and the start of the war. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolutionary War. The Congress created a new country it first named the United Colonies and, in 1776, renamed the United States of America. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition, written in 1775, was the final effort of the Second Continental Congress to persuade King George III of England to respond to the concerns of the American Colonists and to settle their differences amicably. -
Common Sense
He argued for two main points: (1) independence from England and (2) the creation of a democratic republic. Paine avoided flowery prose. He wrote in the language of the people, often quoting the Bible in his arguments. Most people in America had a working knowledge of the Bible, so his arguments rang true. -
Declaration of Independence
By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. -
Daniel Shays’ Rebellion
Uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and stringent economic conditions. Armed bands forced the closing of several courts to prevent the execution of foreclosures and debt processes. -
Constitutional Convention (aka Philadelphia Convention)
The point of the event was decide how America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans.