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1215
Magna Carta
What Happened: Nobles forced the king to sign this document which led to a distribution of power;
Location: England;
Who Was Involved: nobility, King John;
Outcome and Importance: document protected the noble's privileges and upheld their authority, granted certain rights to all landholders -
Mayflower Compact
What Happened: pilgrims needed to create a compact to decide how order would be maintained in the new world;
Location: Provincetown, MA;
Who Was Involved: Pilgrims;
Outcome and Importance: established a tradition of direct democracy that you can still see in New England today. -
English Bill of Rights
What Happened: with the establishment of parliament, britain needed a new law to adequately format the new shift of power;
Location: England, UK;
Who Was Involved: members of parliament;
Outcome and Importance: separation of powers, limits the powers of the king and queen, enhances the democratic election and bolsters freedom of speech -
Cato's Letters
What Happened: a few dudes wrote articles anonymously regarding their disapproval of the current state of authority;
Location: England, UK;
Who Was Involved: John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon;
Outcome and Importance: provided inspiration and ideals for the American Revolution -
French and Indian War
What Happened: war between Britain and France in an imperial struggle to gain more power in the new world;
Location: the new world (United States);
Who Was Involved: British, French;
Outcome and Importance: At the 1763 peace conference, the British received the territories of Canada from France and Florida from Spain, opening the Mississippi Valley to westward expansion. -
Mercantilism
What Happened: the economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances, which a government should encourage by means of protectionism;
Location: England, UK;
Who Was Involved: government;
Outcome and Importance: The British put restrictions on how their colonies spent their money so that they could control their economies. -
Stamp Act
What Happened: 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.;
Location: UK + colonies;
Who Was Involved: Parliament, colonists;
Outcome and Importance: Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the Crown. -
Declaratory Act
What Happened: Parliament passed a law that stated that they had the right to tax and make decisions for the American colonies "in all cases";
Location: England, UK;
Who Was Involved: Parliament;
Outcome and Importance: this law led to multiple acts following its creation which angered colonists to the point of hostility -
Townshend Act
What Happened: this was a law that put heavy taxes on many british imported goods
Location: the colonies
Who Was Involved: made by parliament, the colonists
Outcome and Importance: this act made the colonists angry as they had to pay more than usual for simple things -
Boston Massacre
What Happened: British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by an angry mob;
Location: State Street, Boston, MA;
Who Was Involved: British army infantry men, angry American mob;
Outcome and Importance: heavily publicized by leading patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, moved many more people onto the side of the revolutionaries -
Tea Act
What Happened: It was a law that taxed many different imported goods coming into the colonies
Location: the colonies
Who Was Involved: it was passed by the english parliament to tax the goods that colonists were buying
Outcome and Importance: this was one of the "acts" that made the colonists angry which ulitmately led to the war -
Boston Tea Party
What Happened: The Boston Tea Party was a political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty, a group of protesters to the British cause. This involved the dumping of 342 chests of British tea as a mechanism of boycotting the British tea market;
Location: Boston Harbor, Boston, MA;
Who Was Involved: the Sons of Liberty, Britain;
Outcome and Importance: led to the creation of the intolerable acts, created more tension between American colonies and Britain -
Intolerable/Coercive Act
What Happened: these were a series of acts (also known as the coercive acts);
Location: the colonies;
Who Was Involved: passed by parliament that restricted the colonist's rights;
Outcome and Importance: after the Tea Party the British were angry so they passed acts, this took away from the colonists and gave the British soldiers unlimited power. This angered the colonists and lead them to form the continental congress -
First Continental Congress
What Happened: A meeting between 12 of the 13 British colonies after the Boston Tea Party as well as the Intolerable Acts;
Location: Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, PA;
Who Was Involved: 12 of the 13 delegates of the American colonies, Britain;
Outcome and Importance: a decision was made to impose an economic boycott on British trade, and they drew up a Petition to the King pleading for redress of their grievances and repeal of the Intolerable Acts. -
Lexington and Concord
What Happened: This was the first actual battle of the american revolution. King George III sent troops to the first continental congress;
Location: lexington/concord;
Who Was Involved: the colonists vs the british troops;
Outcome and Importance: this officially started the american revolution it also forced people to choose a side -
Second Continental Congress
What Happened: a meeting of delegates from the 13 colonies to decide on the course of action for the American colonies after the battle of Lexington and Concord (more than half were in favor of breaking away from Britain by 1776);
Location: Philadelphia, PA;
Who Was Involved: the 13 delegates, Britain;
Outcome and Importance: Declaration of Independence was approved and signed, organized a continental army to fight -
Common Sense
What Happened: a pamphlet intended to target the common colonists, discussing why they should break away from England.;
Location: The colonies
Who Was Involved: Thomas Paine
Outcome and Importance: It convinced the colonists that they should break away from england because they were being treated unfairly -
Declaration of Independence
What Happened: Thomas Jefferson (with the help of other founding fathers) create a document declaring that the American Colonies were independent from Britain;
Location: Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA;
Who Was Involved: Founding Fathers, Britain;
Outcome and Importance: American colonies identified themselves as an independent nation, Britain and America went to war as a result