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Start of French/Indian War
North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. -
Albany Plan
A plan to place the British North American colonies under a more centralized government. -
Proclamation of 1763
Prohibited colonists from settling west of the Appalachian. -
Sugar Act
It provided for a strongly enforced tax on sugar, molasses, and other products imported into the American colonies from non-British Caribbean sources. -
Stamp Act
Required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. -
Townshend Act
Initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
A clash between British troops and townspeople in Boston in 1770, before the Revolutionary War. The British fired into a crowd that was threatening them, killing five. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political protest on December 16, 1773, by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts, to throw tea off ships. -
Coercive Acts
A series of laws that restricted trade and increased British control in Boston and the rest of Massachusetts. The Coercive Acts were designed to scare and silence the colonists. -
First Continental Congress
The governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, the famous 'shot heard 'round the world', marked the start of the American War of Independence. -
Second Continental Congress
The late 18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress on July 5, 1775, to be sent to the King as a last attempt to prevent formal war from being declared. The Petition emphasized their loyalty to the British crown and emphasized their rights as British citizens. -
Common Sense
Challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. -
Declaration of Independence
It states the principles on which our government and our identities as Americans are based on and summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence. -
Valley Forge
It was a naturally defensible plateau where the army could train and recoup from the year's battles. -
Battle of Saratoga
The British army attempts to escape north, but a cold, hard rain forces them to stop and encamp near the town of Saratoga and was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. -
Yorktown
A land-and-sea campaign in which American and French troops together entrapped a major British army on a peninsula at Yorktown, Virginia and led directly to the peace negotiations that ended the war in 1783 and gave America its independence. -
Articles of Confederation
The written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. -
Treaty of Paris
It ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation and it ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation.