-
The Navigation Acts and the Sugar Act were two of the laws enacted to restrict colonial trade. -
France surrenders all of its North American possessions east of the Mississippi to Britain. -
The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. -
The Boston Massacre was a street fight between a "patriot" mob and a squad of British soldiers. -
The troops' presence doesn't sit well with locals and leads to street fights. -
The British Parliament passes the Coercive Acts, often called the Intolerable Acts in America. Among other actions, Britain closes the port of Boston and requires British troops to be housed in taverns and vacant buildings. -
Politically disastrous for the British, it persuaded many Americans to take up arms and support the cause of independence. -
The first shots of the Revolutionary War are fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. -
In the first major action of the war, inexperienced colonial soldiers hold off hardened British veterans for more than two hours at Breed's Hill. -
independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. -
most of them of Scots descent, is defeated by a patriot army at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. This setback will largely quiet loyalist activity in the Carolinas for three years. -
A British invasion force mounts an all-day attack on a patriot force on Sullivan’s Island. The invaders are unable to land their troops on the island, and the tricky waters of Charleston Harbor frustrate the British navy. -
The Declaration of Independence states three basic the principles on which our government, and our identity as Americans, are based. -
Valley Forge, where American troops had built a handful of storage facilities. -
The British take Charleston, S.C., capture a large patriot army, and deal the rebels one of their worst defeats of the war. -
Patriot militia from the Carolinas, Virginia, and present-day Tennessee surround and defeat a force of loyalists under Major Patrick Ferguson at Kings Mountain. -
Continental soldiers and patriot militia under General Daniel Morgan defeat a British force under Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens. -
British troops win a costly victory over Continentals and militia at Guilford Courthouse, N.C. The battle is part of General Nathanael Greene's strategy of engaging the British on ground of his choosing. -
oint Franco-American land and sea campaign that entrapped a major British army on a peninsula at Yorktown, Virginia, and forced its surrender -
The Treaty of Paris ratifies the independence of the 13 North American states. Canada remains a British province, beginning its separate development as a U.S. neighbor.