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The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that dominated in Europe during the 18th century. -
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, -
Sons of Liberty was a group established to undermine British rule in colonial America and was influential in organizing The Boston Tea Party. -
Britain passes the Stamp Act, imposing a tax on legal documents, newspapers, even playing cards. This is the first direct tax on the American colonists and is hotly resisted. -
seven British soldiers fired into a crowd of volatile Bostonians, killing five, wounding another six, and angering an entire colony. -
It was an act of protest in which a group of 60 American colonists threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to agitate against both a tax on tea which had been an example of taxation without representation. -
a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea party. -
The Second Continental Congress met inside Independence Hall beginning in May 1775. It was just a month after shots had been fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and the Congress was preparing for war -
he Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts were the first battle between American Minutemen and the British army. -
In the first major action of the war, inexperienced colonial soldiers hold off hardened British veterans for more than two hours at Breed's Hill. Although eventually forced to abandon their position, including the high ground of Bunker Hill overlooking Boston, the patriots show that they are not intimidated by the long lines of red-coated infantrymen. Of the 2,200 British seeing action, more than 1,000 end up dead or wounded. -
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress on July 5 1775 to be sent to the King as a last attempt to prevent formal war from being declared. -
The Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. Following a decade of agitation over taxes and a year of war, representatives make the break with Britain. King George III isn't willing to let his subjects go without a fight, and loyalist sentiment remains strong in many areas. Americans' primary allegiance is to their states; nationalism will grow slowly. -
Washington's forces defeated Lord Charles Cornwallis' veteran army dug in at Yorktown, Virginia -
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S and British Representatives on September 3, 1783 ending the War of the American Revolution. -
The 3/5 Compromise was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the inclusion of slaves in a state's total population.