-
The Stamp Act of 1765
Describes the reaction Americans had to the Stamp Act, a Great Britain demand that the American colonies pay a tax on all kinds of papers and documents -
Sons of Liberty formed by Samuel Adams
The Sons of Liberty was a secret society formed to protect the rights of the American colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. -
Repeal of the Stamp Act
After months of protest, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766. However, the same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies -
Declaratory Act passed by British Parliament
The Declaratory Act was passed by the British parliament to affirm its power to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever”. The declaration stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies. -
Tea Act passed by British Parliament
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. -
The 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. -
The American Revolutionary War
The war of independence waged by the American colonies against Britain influenced political ideas and revolutions around the globe, as a fledgling, largely disconnected nation won its freedom from the greatest military force of its time. -
Declaration of Independence
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 was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies’ intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence–written largely by Jefferson–in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth -
Signing of Peace Treaty
The Treaty of Paris was signed in Paris, France on September 3, 1783. This ended the American Revolutionary War, and gave the colonies their independence from Great Britain. The 13 states were now free to join together and become the United States of America
