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The French and Indian war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, 1763. The British got Canada and Florida. -
The navigation acts prevented colonists from shipping goods without the English seeing them first. -
The Stamp Act was a direct tax on the colonies and required that stamped paper be taxed. Repealed in march 18, 1766. -
The Boston Massacre was an event in which 9 British soldiers shot 5 people out of a crowd. Tensions were high with the Townshend Acts and the Stamp Act being put in place. People started to through snowballs and rocks at a soldier. 8 other soldiers gathered while the mob grew to hundreds more. Eventually the soldiers fired into the crowd killing 5 people. -
The Tea Act was a tax placed on teas. This lead to the Boston Tea Party. -
The Boston Tea Party was a protest by angry colonists because the British imposed “taxation without representation”. They dumped 342 chests of tea that was imported by the British East India Company. -
The intolerable acts were 4 laws that was a way for British Parliament to punish the colonies for The Boston Tea Party. -
Delegates from all 13 colonies, except Georgia met to organize resistance to the Intolerable Acts. They reaffirmed their loyalty to the Crown but argued against Parliament’s right to tax them without representation. -
These battles were the first battles of the Revolutionary War. It is where “The shot heard around the world” took place. -
Congress met again at Independence Hall after the revolution had begun. On June 14 that same year the Congress approved of the Continental Army. They named George Washington commander in chief. They wanted to avoid a full scale war however the king dismissed all their attempts. -
The Continental Congress is said to have adopted the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July. It was officially signed by delegates on August 2nd, 1776. -
The battle of Saratoga was “the turning point of the war”. The colonists defeated the British army therefore lifting the patriots moral. This win helped secure foreign support. -
In December George Washington moved the Continental Army to their winter quarters at Valley Forge. It consisted of 12000 men. 2000 died from the harsh conditions. -
The battle of Yorktown caused the surrender of the British. The battle ended on October 19, 1781. This lead to the Treaty of Paris. -
After the war was over, during the summer of 1787 James Madison, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin drafted the United States Constitution. It was then ratified in 1788. -
The constitution was written in September of 1787 but it wasn’t until June 21, 1788 that it was officially adopted when New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratify it.