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Minutemen Formed
Minutemen were private colonists who independently organized to form well-prepared militia companies self-trained in weaponry, tactics and military strategies from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. -
Enlightenment
European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. -
First Navigation Acts passed
Navigation Acts were a series of laws that restricted the use of foreign ships for trade between Britain and its colonies. -
Half Way Covenant issued
The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial church membership created by New England in 1662. It was promoted in particular by the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, who felt that the people of the English colonies were drifting away from their original religious purpose. -
Boston Newsletter first published
First published on April 24, 1704, The Boston News-Letter is regarded as the first continuously published newspaper in British North America. -
Great Awakening
The term Great Awakening can refer to several periods of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century. -
Molasses Act passed
The Molasses Act of March 1733 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 6 Geo II. c. 13), which imposed a tax of six pence per gallon on imports of molasses from non-British colonies -
French and Indian War begins
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War. The war was fought between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France, as well as Native American allies -
Albany plan of Union created
The Albany Plan of Union was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 48) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress in July 1754 in Albany, New York -
Writs of Assistance passed
A writ of assistance is a written order (a writ) issued by a court instructing a law enforcement official, such as a sheriff or a tax collector, to perform a certain task -
Proclamation of 1763 passed
On October 7, 1763, King George III issued a proclamation that forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. -
Sugar Act passed
The Sugar Act, also known as the American Revenue Act or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on April 5, 1764 -
Son of Liberty formed
The Sons of Liberty was an organization of patriots that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight the abuses of taxation by the British government -
Stamp Act passed
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used -
Colonists begin boycotting British goods
On March 22, 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act which called for tax stamps to be placed on all paper goods sold in the colonies. This represented the first attempt to levy a direct tax on the colonies and was met by fierce opposition and protests. -
Quatering Act passed
On May 3, 1765 the British Parliament met and finally passed a Quartering Act for the Americans. The act stated that troops could only be quartered in barracks and if there wasn't enough space in barracks then they were to be quartered in public houses and inns. -
stamp act congress meets
The Stamp Act Congress, or First Congress of the American Colonies, was a meeting held between October 7 and 25, 1765 in New York City, consisting of representatives from some of the British colonies in North America -
Declaratory Act passed
The Declaratory Act of 1766 was a British Law, passed in mid March by the Parliament of Great Britain, that was passed at the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed -
Tarring and feathering of british agents begins
Tar and feathers was a very old form of punishment, but it does not appear to have ever been widely applied in England or in Europe.(2) Why Gilchrist and his allies chose to resurrect tar and feathers on this particular occasion historians can only surmise. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. -
Boston Tea Party
The Sons of Liberty and the Boston Tea Party. In 1771, a group of colonists protest thirteen years of increasing British oppression, by attacking merchant ships in Boston Harbor. In retaliation, the British close the port, and inflict even harsher penalties -
Committies of Correspondence sends first Circular Letter
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 Britain and shared their plans; by 1773 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials -
Tea Act
The Tea Act. 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 -
Intolerable Acts passed
The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. -
Quebec Acts passed
The Quebec Act of 1774, formally known as the British North America (Quebec) Act 1774,[1] was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 14 Geo. III c. 83) setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. -
Suffolk Resolves issued
The Suffolk Resolves was a declaration made on September 9, 1774 by the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, of which Boston is the major city. -
"Give me liberty or give me death" spoken
"Give me liberty, or give me death!" is a quotation attributed to Patrick Henry from a speech he made to the Virginia Convention in 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, he is credited with having swung the balance in convincing the convention to pass a resolution delivering Virginian troops for the Revolutionary War. Among the delegates to the convention were future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. -
British attack at Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9][10] They 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, near Boston. -
Olive Branch Petition issued
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 the Thirteen Colonies, that the Congress represented, and Great Britain -
Second Continental Congress begins
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
Common Sense publishded
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776 -
Currency Act passed
The colonies suffered a constant shortage of currency with which to conduct trade. There were no gold or silver mines and currency could only be obtained through trade as regulated by Great Britain. Many of the colonies felt no alternative to printing their own paper money in the form of Bills of Credit. -
Townshend Acts passed
A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. -
Declaration of Independence signed
The Declaration of Independence is the usual name of a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies,[2] then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
The Crisis published
The American Crisis. The American Crisis is a pamphlet series by 18th century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine, originally published from 1776 to 1783 during the American Revolution. -
British hire hessians to fight aganst americans
The Hessians /ˈhɛʃən/[1] were 18th-century German auxiliaries contracted for military service by the British government, who found it easier to borrow money to pay for their service than to recruit its own soldiers. -
Letters from an American Farmer published
Letters from an American Farmer is a series of letters written by French American writer J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, first published in 1782 -
King George iii crowned
Ascended the throne in 1760 during the Seven Years' War. Concluded the Seven Years' War (Treaty of Paris.) Married Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, September 8, 1761. Prosecuted the American War of Independence, 1776. Prosecuted various war fronts with Revolutionary France, Napoleon.
