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Albany Plan of Union
Benjamin Franklin proposed a plan to unite the colonies. The plan was rejected because it gave to much power to an assembly made up of representatives from all 13 colonies -
George III becomes king of Great Britain
He had different ideas about how the colonies should be governed. -
French and Indian War
The war started as a struggle between the French and British over lands in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Great Britain won the war in 1763 and gained complete control of the eastern third of the continent. -
Stamp Act
Imposed the first direct tax on the colonists. It required them to pay a tax on legal documents, pamphlets, news papers, and even dice and playing cards. -
Stamp Act Congress
Nine colonies sent delegates to a meeting in New York called the Stamp Act Congress. They sent a letter to the king arguing that only colonial legislatures could impose direct taxes such as the stamp act. -
Boston Tea Party
A group of colonists dressed up as Mohawk Indians, dumped 342 chest of British tea into the Boston Harbor. In relation the parliament passed the Coercive Acts. -
Coercive Acts
The colonists called these the intolerable acts. One of these acts closed the Boston Harbor, another withdrew the right of the Massachusetts colony to govern itself. -
Committees of Correspondence
Committees of colonists who wanted to keep in touch with one another as events unfolded. Samuel Adams established the first committee of Boston. The idea spread quickly, within a few months Massachusetts alone had more than 80 of these committees. -
First Continental Congress
The delegates debated what to do about the relationship with Great Britain. They finally imposed an embargo, on Britain and agreed not to use British goods. They also proposed a meeting for the following year if Britain did not change its politics. -
Second Continental Congress
Delegates from all 13 colonies gathered in Philadelphia for the second continental congress. They immediately assumed the powers of a central government. They chose John Hancock as president, to help raise funds for an army. The next critical steps were to organize and army, and navy, to issue money, and appoint George Washington as commander of the continental army. -
Lexington and Concord
British redcoats clashed with colonial minutemen at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The skirmish was the first battle of the revolutionary war. -
Resolution of Independence
Lee introduced a resolution in the Continental Congress, that these united colonies are, and of the right ought to be, free and independent states -
Deceleration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule
