Surrender of lord cornwallis

american revolution

  • stamp act

    stamp act

    in 1765 British tax on the American colonies requiring a tax stamp on legal documents, newspapers, playing cards, and other paper goods to help pay for British troops after the French and Indian War
  • Quartering Act

    Quartering Act

    series of British laws that required colonial governments to provide housing, food, and supplies for British troops
  • Townshend Acts

    Townshend Acts

    British parliamentary acts imposing duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea imported into the American colonies
  • Boston Massacre

    Boston Massacre

    where British soldiers fired into a crowd of angry colonists, killing five people and wounding several others in Boston
  • Boston Tea Party

    Boston Tea Party

    when American patriots, disguised as Native Americans, dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act
  • Intolerable Acts

    Intolerable Acts

    also known as the Coercive Acts, intended to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party
  • Battle of Lexington & Concord

    Battle of Lexington & Concord

    marked the first military conflicts of the American Revolutionary War.
  • Second Continental Congress

    Second Continental Congress

    the de facto government of the American colonies during the American Revolution
  • Olive Branch Petition

    Olive Branch Petition

    a final attempt by the Second Continental Congress to avoid war and reconcile with Great Britain
  • Common Sense

    Common Sense

    47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies.
  • Declaration of Independence

    Declaration of Independence

    founding document of the United States that formally announced the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain
  • Articles of Confederation

    Articles of Confederation

    creating a weak central government with most power residing in the individual states
  • Daniel Shays’ Rebellion

    Daniel Shays’ Rebellion

    led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, protesting burdensome taxes and debt collection after the Revolutionary War
  • Annapolis Convention

    Annapolis Convention

    to address the economic and trade problems under the Articles of Confederation
  • Constitutional Convention

    Constitutional Convention

    in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to revise the Articles of Confederation but ultimately ended up drafting the United States Constitution