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French and Indian War
A series of military engagements between Britain and France in North America between 1754 and 1763. The French and Indian War was the American phase of the Seven Years' War, which was then underway in Europe. -
Proclamination of 1763
Was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Sugar Act
This is a law passed by the British Parliament in 1764 raising duties on foreign refined sugar imported by the colonies. -
Stamp Act
This was 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,which led to colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the Crown. -
Quartering Act
Is the name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. -
Townshend Act
A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. -
Boston Massacre
Is a riot in Boston (March 5, 1770) arising from the resentment of Boston colonists toward British troops quartered in the city, in which the troops fired on the mob and killed several persons -
Boston Tea Party
a raid on three British ships in Boston Harbor (December 16, 1773) in which Boston colonists, disguised as Indians, threw the contents of several hundred chests of tea into the harbor as a protest against British taxes on tea and against the monopoly granted the East India Company. Origin of Boston Tea Party. -
Tea Act
Was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the financially struggling company survive. -
Coercive Act
A series of British measures passed in 1774 and designed to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Boston Tea Party. For example, one of the laws closed the port of Boston until the colonists paid for the tea that they had destroyed. -
First Continental Congress
Was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies who met from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
Second Continental Congress
Was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the spring of 1775 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774. -
Common Sense
Thomas Paine argues for American independence. His argument begins with more general, theoretical reflections about government and religion, then progresses onto the specifics of the colonial situation. Paine begins by distinguishing between government and society. -
Declaration of Independence
known as the formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. An example of the Declaration of Independence was the document adopted at the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. -
Shot Heard around the World
A phrase from a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson about the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
