-
1754-1763: French and Indian Wa
The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War, the American phase of a worldwide nine years’ war fought between France and Great Britain. -
The Stamp Act
Like the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act was imposed to provide increased revenues to meet the costs of defending the enlarged British Empire. -
Period: to
The Townshend Acts
The acts were resisted everywhere with verbal agitation and physical violence, deliberate evasion of duties, renewed nonimportation agreements among merchants, and overt acts of hostility toward British enforcement agents, especially in Boston. -
Boston Massacre
A party of Bostonians thinly disguised as Mohawk people boarded ships at anchor and dumped some £10,000 worth of tea into the harbor. This is know as the Boston Tea Party. -
Period: to
Intolerable Acts
-
First Continental Congress convenes
The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. -
Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech
-
Paul Revere’s Ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord
-
Battle of Bunker Hill
-
Declaration of Independence adopted
What we now call Independence Day for our country. -
Washington crosses the Delaware
-
Period: to
Washington winters at Valley Forge
Washington and 11,000 regulars took up winter quarters at Valley Forge, 22 miles northwest of British-occupied Philadelphia. Although its ranks were decimated by rampant disease, semi-starvation, and bitter cold, the reorganized Continental Army emerged the following June as a well-disciplined and efficient fighting force. -
France and the United States form an alliance
-
John Paul Jones: “I have not yet begun to fight!”
-
Period: to
Siege of Yorktown
Lord Cornwallis entered Virginia to join other British forces there, setting up a base at Yorktown. -
The Articles of Confederation Ratified
The Articles of Confederation, a plan of government organization that served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress and the federal government provided under the U.S. Constitution of 1787, were written in 1776–77 and adopted by the Congress on November 15, 1777. -
Treaty of Paris ends the war
After the British defeat at Yorktown, the land battles in America largely died out. The fighting continued at sea, chiefly between the British and America’s European allies, which came to include Spain and the Netherlands. The military verdict in North America was reflected in the preliminary Anglo-American peace treaty of 1782, which was included in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
