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Intolerable Act
The American Patriots' term for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance of throwing a large tea shipment into Boston Harbor in reaction to being taxed by the British. -
Treaty Of Paris 1763
Ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there. -
Proclamation of 1763
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 past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Sugar Act
Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses. -
Stamp Act
Was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that imposed a direct tax on the colonies of British America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. -
Quartering Act
The name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the local government of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing. Required colonist to provide food for British soldiers -
Quartering Act
2 Acts of British Parliament in the local government of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing. Required colonist to provide food to the British soldiers. -
Declaratory Act
Declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765). -
Townshend Act
Originated by Charles Townshend and passed by the English Parliament shortly after the repeal of the Stamp Act. They were designed to collect revenue from the colonists in America by putting customs duties on imports of glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
British Army soldiers shot and killed people while under intense attack by a mob. The incident was heavily propagandized by leading Patriots, such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, to fuel animosity toward the British authorities -
Tea Act
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 struggling company survive. -
Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This resulted in the passage of the punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
1st Continental Congress
was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies that met on September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
First military engagement of the American Revolutionary War. Fought in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, Lincoln, and Cambridge, near Boston. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
Where the British defeated the Americans here. Despite their loss, the inexperienced colonial forces inflicted significant casualties against the enemy, and this battle also provided confidence boost. -
Olive Branch Petition
A letter to King George III, from members of the Second Continental Congress, which represents the last attempt by the moderate party in North America to avoid a war of independence against Britain. -
Common Sense
Challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. -
Declaration Of Independence
The statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies,[2] then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. -
2nd Continental Congress
Managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. -
Battle Of Saratoga
The turning point of the Revolutionary War. The scope of the victory is made clear by a few key facts: On October 17, 1777, 5,895 British and Hessian troops surrendered their arms. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Surrender at Yorktown, German Battle or the Siege of Little York ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army -
Treaty Of Paris 1783
The Treaty of Paris of 1783, negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, ended the revolutionary war and recognized American independence.
