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French and Indian War
The French and Indian War pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, each side supported by military units from the parent country and by Native American allies. -
Treaty of 1763
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there. -
Proclamation of 1763
In response to Pontiac's Rebellion, a revolt of Native Americans led by Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, King George III declared all lands west of the Appalachian Divide off-limits to colonial settlers. This royal proclamation, issued on October 7, 1763, closed down colonial expansion westward beyond Appalachia. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston. It began as a street brawl between American colonists and a lone British soldier, but quickly escalated to a chaotic, bloody slaughter. The conflict energized anti-British sentiment and paved the way for the American Revolution. -
Committees of Correspondence
The Committees of Correspondence were the American colonies’ means for maintaining communication lines in the years before the Revolutionary War. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. It showed Great Britain that Americans wouldn’t take taxation and tyranny sitting down. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, kicked off the American Revolutionary War. On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. -
Bunker Hill
On June 17, 1775, early in the Revolutionary War, the British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts. Despite their loss, the inexperienced colonial forces inflicted significant casualties against the enemy, and the battle provided them with an important confidence boost during the Siege of Boston. Although commonly referred to as the Battle of Bunker Hill, most of the fighting occurred on nearby Breed’s Hill. -
Publication of Common Sense
Writing 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. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government. -
Trenton
General George Washington’s army crossed the icy Delaware on Christmas Day 1776 and, over the course of the next 10 days, won two crucial battles of the American Revolution. In the Battle of Trenton, Washington defeated a formidable garrison of Hessian mercenaries before withdrawing. A week later he returned to Trenton to lure British forces south. The victories reasserted American control of much of New Jersey and greatly improved the morale and unity of the colonial army and militias. -
Saratoga
It included two crucial battles, fought eighteen days apart, and was a decisive victory for the Continental Army and a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War. -
Valley Forge
The six-month encampment of George Washington’s Continental Army at Valley Forge in the winter was a major turning point in the American Revolutionary War. While conditions were notoriously cold and harsh and provisions were in short supply, it was at the winter camp where George Washington proved his mettle and, with the help of former Prussian military officer Friedrich Steuben, transformed a battered Continental Army into a unified, world-class fighting force capable of beating the British. -
Cowpens
At the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina on January 17, 1781, during the Revolutionary War, American troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan routed British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. The Americans inflicted heavy casualties on the British, and the battle was a turning point in the war’s Southern campaign. -
Yorktown
When British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and his army surrendered to General George Washington’s American force and its French allies at the Battle of Yorktown on October 19, 1781, it was more than just military win. The outcome in Yorktown, Virginia marked the conclusion of the last major battle of the American Revolution and the start of a new nation's independence. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 formally ended the American Revolutionary War. American statesmen Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay negotiated the peace treaty with representatives of King George III of Great Britain. In the Treaty of Paris, the British Crown formally recognized American independence and ceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi River to the United States, doubling the size of the new nation and paving the way for westward expansion.
