-
French-Indian War (1756-1763)
The French and Indian War was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. -
Stamp Act 1765
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. -
Declaratory Act 1765
The repeal of the Stamp Act did not mean that Great Britain was surrendering any control over its colonies. The Declaratory Act, passed by Parliament on the same day the Stamp Act was repealed, stated that Parliament could make laws binding the American colonies "in all cases whatsoever." -
Townshend Acts 1767
To help pay the expenses involved in governing the American colonies, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. Nonimportation. In response to new taxes, the colonies again decided to discourage the purchase of British imports. -
Boston Massacre March 5 1770
On March 5, 1770, British soldiers fired upon a group of rowdy colonists, killing five and wounding others. “On that night, the foundation of American Independence was laid,” wrote John Adams. -
Boston Tea Party 1773
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. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. -
Intolerable Acts (aka Coercive Acts) 1773
They were a key development leading to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in April 1775. Four acts were enacted by Parliament in early 1774 in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773: Boston Port, Massachusetts Government, Impartial Administration of Justice, and Quartering Acts. -
Quartering Act 1774
The last act passed was the Quartering Act of 1774 which applied not just to Massachusetts, but to all the American colonies, and was only slightly different than the 1765 act. This new act allowed royal governors, rather than colonial legislatures, to find homes and buildings to quarter or house British soldiers. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord 1775
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were some of the leading military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. -
Second Continental Congress May 1775
The Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775, to plan further responses if the British government did not repeal or modify the acts; however, the American Revolutionary War had started by that time with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Congress was called upon to take charge of the war effort. -
Common Sense 1776
Common Sense is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. -
Declaration of Independence 1776
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.