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Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was a law passed by the British Parliament. the law requires American colonists to pay tax on every piece of paper they used. The money collected from the Stamp Act paid to defend and protect the American frontier near the Appalachians. -
Boston Massacre
A group of British soldier where being attacked by rebels throwing snow balls. right away the British fired back. Three people where killed instantly two died later of their wounds. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament, granted the British East India Tea Company a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. May of the colonists boycotted the tea. This act compelled a group, Sons of Liberty, to then dump 92,000 pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor. -
Lexington/ Concord
On the night of April 18, Gage sent 700 British soldiers to Concord to seize patriot supplies there. British reached the town of Lexington, just east of Concord, where they found seventy American militiamen waiting for them on the village green. Both sides stood their ground, a shot was fired. Though it’s unclear which side, British soldier or American patriot, fired that first “shot heard ’round the world,” history remembers it as the start of the American Revolutionary War. -
Bunker (Breed's) Hill
Over a thousand colonials marched east from Cambridge with orders to fortify Bunker Hill. But the Americans bypassed Bunker Hill in the dark and instead began fortifying Breed’s Hill, a smaller rise much closer to Boston and almost in the face of the British. -
Common Sense
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 Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the American political tradition. It articulates the fundamental ideas that form the American nation: All men are created free and equal and possess the same inherent, natural rights. Legitimate governments must therefore be based on the consent of the governed and must exist “to secure these rights.” -
Battle of Trenton/ Princeton
On the night of January 2, 1777 George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek in Trenton. That night, he evacuated his position, circled around General Lord Cornwallis' army, and went to attack the British garrison at Princeton. -
Battle of Saratoga
During the long afternoon, the British were unable to maintain any initiative or momentum. Pinned in place, they suffered galling American gunfire as they strove to hold their lines. Late in the day, reinforcements of German auxiliary troops turned the tide for Burgoyne’s beleaguered forces. Although driven from the battlefield, the British had suffered heavy casualties and Gates’ army still blocked his move south to Albany -
Continental Army wintering at Valley Forge
The Continental Army suffered another defeat at the Battle of Germantown just north of Philadelphia. Washington led his weary and demoralized army to Valley Forge a few miles away where they would camp for the winter. -
War in the south/ Charleston
The 1776 Siege of Charleston, South Carolina, was a short but important military episode in the early years of the American Revolution. A small American Patriot force defending Charleston under the overall command of Major General Charles Lee successfully repelled a combined British assault force of 2,900 soldiers. -
Battle of Yorktown
Cornwallis' surrender ended a disastrous southern campaign for the British army. As Cornwallis' 8,000 man force became prisoners-of-war, the British band played the, The World Turned Upside Down, a tune that underscored the strange turn of events which had brought defeat at the hands of the provincial forces of America, to the most powerful country in Europe.
