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End of the French and Indian War.
The Treaty of Paris (February 10) formally ends the French and Indian War. France cedes most of its territories in North America to Great Britain, but Louisiana west of the Mississippi River is ceded to Spain. -
Navigation Acts re-enforced
The Navigation Acts are re-enforced by George Grenville as a part of his attempt to reassert unified economic control over the British Empire following the Seven Years' War. -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act (April 5), intended to raise revenues, and the Currency Act (September 1), prohibiting the colonies from issuing paper money, are passed by Parliament. These Acts, coming during the economic slump that followed the French and Indian War, are resented by the colonists and lead to protests. -
Stamp Act passed.
The Sugar Act (April 5), intended to raise revenues, and the Currency Act (September 1), prohibiting the colonies from issuing paper money, are passed by Parliament. These Acts, coming during the economic slump that followed the French and Indian War, are resented by the colonists and lead to protests. -
Declaration of the Rights of Grievances by Nine Colonies
Delegates from nine colonies attend the Stamp Act Congress which adopts (October 19) a Declaration of Rights and Grievances and petitions Parliament and the king to repeal the Act. -
The Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts, named for Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, are passed by Parliament (June 29), placing duties on many items imported into America. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British,[2] was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers shot and killed people while under attack by a mob. The incident was heavily publicized by leading Patriots, such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, to encourage rebellion against the British authorities -
Committees of Correspondence Organized
The committees of correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. They coordinated responses to England and shared their plans; by 1773 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9] The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America. -
Fort Ticonderoga captured
Fort Ticonderoga captured by Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys. -
Continental Army established
Continental Army established by a resolution of Congress. This would later become the modern United States Army -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775 in a final attempt to avoid a full-on war between Great Britain and the thirteen colonies represented in that Congress. The Congress had already authorized the invasion of Canada more than a week earlier, but the petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and beseeched King George III to prevent further conflict. -
Common Sense by Thomas Paine is published
Common Sense[1] is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Written in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution, and became an immediate sensation. -
Battle of Trenton
The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal battle during the American Revolutionary War which took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey. After General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton the previous night, Washington led the main body of the Continental Army against Hessian soldiers garrisoned at Trenton. After a brief battle, nearly the entire Hessian force was captured, with negligible losses to the Americans. -
Treaty of Alliance
The Treaty of Alliance with France or Franco-American Treaty was a defensive alliance between France and the United States of America, formed in the midst of the American Revolutionary War, which promised mutual military support in case fighting should break out between French and British forces, as the result signing the previously concluded Treaty of Amity and Commerce. -
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce Between the United States and France, was the first of two treaties. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the de facto independence of the United States and established a strictly commercial treaty between the two nations as an alternative to, and in direct defiance of, the British Acts of Trade and Navigation; the Treaty of Alliance, for mutual defense, -
Articles of Confederation ratified
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first constitution.[1] Its drafting by a committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress began on July 12, 1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification on November 15, 1777. -
The British surrender at Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the Surrender at Yorktown, German Battle or the Siege of Little York, ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British peer and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. -
The British House of Commons recognizes American independence.
The British House of Commons votes against further war, informally recognizing American independence. -
The Treaty of Paris agreed to in Paris
The Treaty of Paris (1783) ends the American Revolutionary War -
Treaty of Paris is ratified by the Congress.
Ratification Day in the United States is the anniversary of the ratification of the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784 at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland by the Confederation Congress. This act officially ended the American Revolutionary War. -
The Treaty of Paris is ratified by the British Parliament.
The Treaty of Paris is ratified by the British Parliament. -
United States and Great Britain exchange treaties in Paris
Ratified treaties are exchanged in Paris between the two nations.
