-
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry -
The demonstrators boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. The British government considered the protest an act of treason and responded harshly. The episode escalated into the American Revolution, becoming an iconic event of American history -
The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Spurred by local pressure groups, colonial legislatures empowered delegates to attend a Continental Congress which would set terms for a boycott. The colony of Connecticut was the first to respond. The Congress first met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, with delegates from each of the 13 colonies except Georgia. -
a race to Concord to warn Patriots Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops - 700 of them - were marching to Concord to arrest them. True, warning Adams and Hancock triggered Revere's ride from Boston. -
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, the famous 'shot heard 'round the world', marked the start of the American War of Independence (1775-83). Politically disastrous for the British, it persuaded many Americans to take up arms and support the cause of independence. -
New England soldiers faced the British army for the first time in a pitched battle. Popularly known as "The Battle of Bunker Hill," bloody fighting took place throughout a hilly landscape of fenced pastures that were situated across the Charles River from Boston -
Written in June 1776, Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence, included eighty-six changes made later by John Adams (1735–1826), Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790), other members of the committee appointed to draft the document, and by Congress. -
New York | Sep 19 - Oct 7, 1777. The Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. The American defeat of the superior British army lifted patriot morale, furthered the hope for independence, and helped to secure the foreign support needed to win the war. -
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, ending the War of the American Revolution. Based on a 1782 preliminary treaty, the agreement recognized U.S. independence and granted the U.S. significant western territory.