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French/Indian war
The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution. -
Stamp act
An act of the British Parliament that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. -
Townshend act
A series of laws passed by the British government on the American colonies.They placed new taxes and took away some freedoms from the colonists including the following: New taxes on imports of paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
A riot in Boston 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 people. -
Boston Tea Party
A raid on three British ships in Boston Harbor 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. -
Tea Act
The act granted the company the right to ship its tea directly to the colonies without first landing it in England, and to commission agents who would have the sole right to sell tea in the colonies. -
Intolerable acts
Punitive laws passed by the British Parliament after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British to the detriment of colonial goods. -
Lexington and Concord
The first battle of the Revolutionary War, fought in Massachusetts British troops had moved from Boston toward Lexington and Concord to seize the colonists' military supplies and arrest revolutionaries. -
Publishing of Common Sense
A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. -
1st and 2nd Continental Congress
The President of the First Congress was Peyton Randolph. The Second Continental Congress first met on May 10, 1775. After that, the delegates continued to meet in different sessions until March of 1781, when the Articles of the Confederation were ratified, the Second Continental Congress was led by John Hancock.
