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French and Indian War
The war was fought between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France. It began with a dispute over control of the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, called the Forks of the Ohio, and the site of the French Fort Duquesne and present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The war in North America ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, (Wikipedia.com) -
Treaty of Paris
This ended the French & Indian war. It was signed by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. The Treaty was made possible by the British victory over France and Spain, and marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe. (Wikipedia.com) -
Proclamation of 1763,
Created by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, in which it forbade settlers from settling past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains.The purpose of the proclamation was to organize Great Britain's new North American empire and to stabilize relations with Native North Americans through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier. (Wikipedia) -
Sugar Act of 1764
A revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. This was a tax on goods such as Sugar. The Sugar Act was repealed in 1766 and replaced with the Revenue Act of 1766, which reduced the tax to one penny per gallon on molasses imports. -
Stamp Act of 1765
a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp.[1][2] These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money. (Wikipedia.com) -
Quartering Act
This first Quartering Act (citation 5 Geo. III c. 33) was given Royal Assent on March 24, 1765, and provided that Great Britain would house its soldiers in American barracks and public houses, as by the Mutiny Act of 1765, -
Writs of Assistance
Uncertainty about the legality of writs of assistance issued by colonial superior courts prompted Parliament to affirm that such writs were legal in the 1767 Townshend Acts. A writ of assistance is a written order (a writ) issued by a court instructing a law enforcement official, such as a sheriff, to perform a certain task. Historically, several types of writs have been called "writs of assistance".[1] Most often, a writ of assistance is "used to enforce an order for the possession of lands". -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act. -
Boston Massacre
British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support crown-appointed colonial officials attempting to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. Amid ongoing tense relations between the population and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry, who was subjected to verbal abuse and harassment. (Wikipedia) -
Tea Act
Its principal overt objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of tea smuggled into Britain's North American colonies. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament's right of taxation. (Wikipedia) -
Boston Tea Party
On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it. The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. -
1st Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve British North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. (Wikipedia) -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable(Coercive) Acts was a name used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9][10] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America.
(Wikipedia) -
2nd Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence -
Battle of Bunker Hill
While the result was a victory for the British, they suffered heavy losses: over 800 wounded and 226 killed, including a notably large number of officers. The battle is seen as an example of a Pyrrhic victory, because the immediate gain (the capture of Bunker Hill) was modest and did not significantly change the state of the siege, while the cost (the loss of nearly a third of the deployed forces) was high. -
Ft. Ticonderoga
Near the southern end of Lake Champlain in the state of New York. Lieutenant General John Burgoyne's 8,000-man army occupied high ground above the fort, and nearly surrounded the defences. These movements precipitated the occupying Continental Army, an under-strength force of 3,000 under the command of General Arthur St. Clair, to withdraw from Ticonderoga and the surrounding defences. (Wikipedia) -
Common Sense
Common Sense[1] is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution. Common Sense, was signed, "Written by an Englishman", and it became an immediate success.[2] In relative proportion to the population of the colonies at that time. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of seeking independence was still undecided. -
Battle of New York
Congress—hoping to prevent such a reassertion and forestall the loss of overland communication between New England and the other colonies—urged Gen. George Washington to undertake the almost hopeless task of defending New York. Without a navy, Washington hoped that shore batteries would protect his army from defeat. With perhaps 19,000 men, many of them poorly trained militia, he faced the largest force Britain had yet sent overseas, over 40,000 soldiers and sailors. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams had put forth a resolution earlier in the year, making a subsequent formal declaration inevitable. A committee was assembled to draft the formal declaration, to be ready when congress voted on independence. -
Battle of Trenton
took place on December 26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, after General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey. Despite the battle's small numbers, the American victory inspired rebels in the colonies. With the success of the revolution in doubt a week earlier, the army had seemed on the verge of collapse. The dramatic victory inspired soldiers to serve longer and attracted new recruits to the ranks. -
Battle of Princeton
The Battle of Princeton (January 3, 1777) was a battle in which General George Washington's revolutionary forces defeated British forces near Princeton, New Jersey. In Princeton itself, Brigadier General John Sullivan forced some British troops who had taken refuge in Nassau Hall to surrender, ending the battle. After the battle, Washington moved his army to Morristown, and with their third defeat in 10 days, the British evacuated southern New Jersey. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga conclusively decided the fate of British General John Burgoyne's army in the American War of Independence and are generally regarded as a turning point in the war. The battles were fought eighteen days apart on the same ground, 9 miles (14 km) south of Saratoga, New York. Burgoyne's campaign to divide New England from the southern colonies had started well, but slowed due to logistical problems. -
Valley Forge
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the site of the military camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 during the American Revolutionary War. With winter almost set in, and the prospects for campaigning greatly diminishing, General George Washington sought quarters for his men. Washington and his troops had just fought what was to be the last major engagement of 1777 at the Battle of White Marsh. Though several locations were proposed, he selected Valley Forge. -
Battle of Yorktown
a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis. The culmination of the Yorktown campaign, it proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War in North America, as the surrender by Cornwallis of his army prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of these, and the negotiations which produced all four treaties, see Peace of Paris (1783). Its territorial provisions were "exceedingly generous" to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries.