-
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was imposed to provide increased revenues to meet the costs of defending the enlarged British Empire.
debatable question : To what extent did the British find the stamp act usful? -
Boston massacre
In Boston, a small British army detachment that was threatened by mob harassment opened fire and killed five people, an incident soon known as the Boston Massacre.
Debatable question : Was the Boston massacre planed? -
Boston Tea Party
Protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company, a party of Bostonians thinly disguised as Mohawk people boarded ships at anchor and dumped some £10,000 worth of tea into the harbor, an event popularly known as the Boston Tea Party.
Debatable question : To what extent did the boston tea party effect the British ? -
Declaration of Independence adopted
After the Congress recommended that colonies form their own governments, the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and revised in committee. On July 2 the Congress voted for independence; on July 4 it adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Debatable question : How did the Declaration of Independence impact "America:" -
First Continental Congress convenes
Called by the Committees of Correspondence in response to the Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates represented all the colonies except Georgia.
Debatable question: how did the first congress meeting affect the war? -
Paul Revere’s Ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord
the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode from Charlestown to Lexington to warn that the British were marching from Boston to the colonial armory at Concord. The British force of 700 men was met on Lexington by 77 local minutemen and others. It is unclear who fired the first shot but eight Americans died. At Concord, British were met by hundreds of militiamen.
Debatable question: would the war have been completely diferent if this battle didn't happen? -
Battle of Bunker Hill
Breed’s Hill in Charlestown was the primary locus of combat in the misleadingly named Battle of Bunker Hill, which was part of the American siege of British-held Boston. Some 2,300 British troops eventually cleared the hill of the entrenched Americans, but at the cost of more than 40 percent of the assault force. The battle was a moral victory for the Americans.
Debatable question: To what extent were the Americans victorious in this battle? -
Washington crosses the Delaware
Having been forced to abandon New York City and driven across New Jersey by the British, George Washington and the Continental Army struck back on Christmas night by stealthily crossing the ice-strewn Delaware River, surprising the Hessian garrison at Trenton at dawn, and taking some 900 prisoners. The American triumph at Trenton and in the Battle of Princeton roused the new country and kept the struggle for independence alive.
Debatable question:Why did someone make a painting about this event? -
Siege of Yorktown
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. Washington’s army and a force under the French Count de Rochambeau placed Yorktown under siege, and Cornwallis surrendered his army of more than 7,000 men on October 19, 1781.
Debatable question: To what extent was this battle needed? -
Treaty of Paris ends the war
After the British defeat at Yorktown, the land battles in America largely died out but the fighting continued at sea, between the British and America’s European allies, which came to include Spain and the Netherlands. The military verdict in North America was reflected in the peace treaty of 1782, which was included in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. In the treaty it called peace on America and Britain.
Debatable question: If this treaty wasn't made would the war still be going on?