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French-Indian War
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. -
Navigation Acts
Acts of Parliament intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods. -
Stamp Act
An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. -
Quartering Act
Stated that Great Britain would house its soldiers in American barracks and public houses. -
Townshend Acts
Initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation in Boston in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. -
Intolerable Acts (aka Coercive Acts)
A series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord (aka “The Shot Heard Around the World”)
It was called the "shot heard around the world" by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem Concord Hymn. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress to be sent to the King as a last attempt to prevent formal war from being declared. -
Second Continental Congress
A late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolutionary War. -
Common Sense
Common Sense is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. It was a list of grievances against the king of England intended to justify separation from British rule. The Constitution was written and signed in 1787. -
Daniel Shays’ Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades. The fight took place mostly in and around Springfield -
Constitutional Convention (aka Philadelphia Convention)
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the point of the event was decide how America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans.