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French & Indian War
When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies, a series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756. -
Sons of Liberty
Most famous for their role in the Boston Tea Party, the Sons of Liberty used grassroots activism to push back against British rule. -
Townshend Act of 1767
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Boston Massacre
A group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of hundreds of people who were yelling at them and throwing things at them. -
Boston Tea Party
American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
First Continental Congress meets
the first Continental Congress in the United States met in Philadelphia to consider its reaction to the British government's restraints on trade and representative government after the Boston Tea Party. -
Battles of Lexington & Concord
It was the first military engagement of the American Revolutionary War. -
Second Continental Congress meets
The Second Continental Congress met inside Independence Hall. It was just a month after shots had been fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, and the Congress was preparing for war. -
Articles of Confederation created
The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress. This document served as the United States' first constitution. -
Battle of Yorktown
Siege of Yorktown joint Franco-American land and sea campaign that entrapped a major British army on a peninsula at Yorktown, Virginia, and forced its surrender. The siege virtually ended military operations in the American Revolution. -
Treaty of Paris signed
This treaty between the American colonies and Great Britain ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. -
Great Compromise
It was an agreement reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 between delegates of the states with large and small populations that defined the structure of Congress and the number of representatives each state would have in Congress according to the United States Constitution. -
Constitution is ratified
the Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it. -
Bill of Rights adopted
President Washington sent copies of the 12 amendments adopted by Congress to the states.
