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The French and Indian War was fought between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The war began with conflicts about land. -
The Sugar Act was the first tax on the American colonies imposed by the British Parliament. They taxed sugar. -
The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the French and Indian War. The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. -
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. The American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
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.
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The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” so they dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
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. -
The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The British marched into Lexington and Concord intending to suppress the possibility of rebellion by seizing weapons from the colonists. -
The American patriots were defeated at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but they proved they could hold their own against the superior British Army. The fierce fight confirmed that any reconciliation between England and the American colonies was no longer possible.
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The Olive Branch Petition was a final attempt by the colonists to avoid going to war with Britain during the American Revolution. It was a document in which the colonists pledged their loyalty to the crown and asserted their rights as British citizens. The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress on July 5, 1775.
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Common Sense is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. -
The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 1776. It was adopted by the Second Continental Congress, which states the reasons the British colonies of North America sought independence.
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The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal American Revolutionary War battle that took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey. This was a surprise attack on the British army.
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The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. This battle was a turning point in the war for the Americans. -
The Battle of Yorktown was won by the Americans, in which they won the war. The British surrendering caused the end of British rule in the colonies and the birth of a new nation—the United States of America.