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The First Great Awakening, or the Evangelical Revival, was a series of Christian revivals that swept the thirteen North American colonies. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches.
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The American Enlightenment was a period of intellectual and philosophical fervor in the thirteen American colonies in the 18th to 19th century, which led to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America. The American Enlightenment was influenced by the 17th- and 18th-century Age of Enlightenment in Europe and native American philosophy. The U.S. Declaration of Independence, is one of the most important documents of the American Enlightenment.
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The French and Indian War was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on their native allies.
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The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, was signed by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Great Britain and Prussia's victory over France and Spain during the Seven Years' War. The signing of the treaty formally ended the conflict (French and Indian War) between France and Great Britain over control of North America. -
The Stamp Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London which included an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money. -
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution based on the principles of the American Enlightenment. It created the environment for the American Revolutionary War, whereby the Thirteen Colonies secured their independence from the British Crown and consequently established the United States as the first sovereign nation state founded on Enlightenment principles of the consent of the governed, constitutionalism and liberal democracy.
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The Townshend Acts were a series of British acts of Parliament introducing a series of taxes and regulations.The purposes of the acts were:
-raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges
-create more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations
-punish the Province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act
-establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies -
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation in Boston, in which nine British soldiers shot several of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. The event was heavily publicized as "a massacre" by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 in order to support crown-appointed officials and to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. -
The American Revolutionary War, was the conflict of the American Revolution in which Patriot forces under Washington's command defeated the British, securing independence of the United States. Fighting began at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The war intensified following passage of the Lee Resolution, which asserted that the Thirteen Colonies were separate states, by the Second Continental Congress, and the unanimous ratification of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. -
The Northwest Ordinance, enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It created the Northwest Territory, the new nation's first organized incorporated territory, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory's western boundary. -
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that: regulate an establishment of religion; prohibit the free exercise of religion; abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.