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French and Indian War
Known as the Seven Years War, was the beginning of hostilities between the colonies and Great Britian. England and France were building toward a conflict in America since 1689. www.ushistory.com -
Sugar Act
Merchants were require to pay a tax of six pence per gallon of imported molasses. This act set the stage for the revolt of the imposition of the Stamp Act. www.history.com -
Stamp Act
This act was the first serious attempt by Parilment to asssert governmental authority over the colonies. After the French and Indian War, Britian was faced with a massive National Debt. www.ushistory.org -
Townshed Act
This act granted certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa nuts of the produce of the said colonies or plantations. www.history.com -
Tea Act
This act would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. Britian sent ships of tea to all of the colonies and the colonists revolted and left cargo and ships in the harbor and even turned ships around. This situation resulted in the Boston Tea party. www.ushistory.com -
Boston Tea Party
A group of Massachusetts Patriots protested the monopoly on American Tea importation. They seized 342 chests of tea and threw them into the harbor. Ths action was part of a wave of resistance through the colonies. www.history.com -
Enforcement Acts (Intolerable Acts)
The idea of passing these acts was to detach and isolate the radical element in Massachusetts from the rest of the colonies while aslo asserting the power of Paraliment over the colonial assemblies. The harshness of the acts worked to prevent this outcome as many in the colonies rallied to Massachusetts’s aid. www.ushistory.org -
First Continential Congress
Met in Carpetenders Hall in Philadephia. On October 14, the Declaration and Resolves established the course of the congress, as a statement of principles common to all of the colonies. Congress voted to meet again the following year if these grievances were not attended to by England. The objectives of the body were not entirely clear but, with such leadership as was found there, a core set of tasks was carried out. www.history.com -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
This battle kicked off the American Revolutionary War. On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the British column. www.ushistory.com -
Second Continental Congress
The battle of Lexington and Concord had changed everything. When the British fired into the Boston crowd in 1775, the benefit of the doubt was granted. Now the imperial army was attempting to arrest patriot leaders, and minutemen had been killed in their defense. In May 1775, with British once again storming Boston, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. www.history.com -
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"
This book 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. www.ushistory.org -
Declaration of Independence
When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. www.history.com
