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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Crata
The Magna Carta is a document that King John of England (1166 - 1216) was forced into signing. King John was forced into signing the charter because it greatly reduced the power he held as the King of England and allowed for the formation of a powerful parliament. The Magna Carta was a collection of 37 English laws - some copied, some recollected, some old and some new. The Magna Carta demonstrated that the power of the king could be limited by a written grant. -
Petition of Right
Petition of Rights (1628), Parliamentary declaration of the rights and liberties of the people, assented to by Charles I in the beginning of his reign (1628). The petition demanded:
1. That no freeman should be forced to pay any tax, loan, or benevolence, unless in accordance with an act of parliament;
2. That no freeman should be imprisoned contrary to the laws of the land;
3. That soldiers and sailors should not be billeted on private persons; -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights established a constitutional monarchy in Great Britain. A constitutional monarchy is one in which the King or Queen has a largely royal position. It is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state but their powers are defined and limited by law. The English Bill criticized King James II for abusing his power and the bill was passed as British law in December 1688. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 refers to the tax enforced by the Parliament of Great Britain on the colonies of then British America. The act called for printed materials within the colonies to be standardized using London-made stamp paper with embossed revenue stamps. Such printed materials include mostly of legal documents, newspapers, magazines and other types of paper used throughout the colonies. -
Townshend Duties
Britain tried to raise additional revenue by the Townshend Duties passed by Parliament in 1767. Charles Townshend, the British Chancellor of the exchequer responded to the arguments of Benjamin Franklin and others about the colonists' objections to the Stamp Act. Duties were placed on colonial imports of lead, glass, paper, and tea. The money collected on these imports was used to pay the salaries of British officials in America. -
Boston Massacre
The Massacre was the 1770, pre-Revolutionary incident growing out of the anger against the British troops sent to Boston to maintain order and to enforce the Townshend Acts. The troops were constantly tormented by irresponsible gangs, finally on Mar. 5, 1770, fired into a rioting crowd and killed five men: three on the spot, two of them died later. The Massacre became a legendary event of the American rebellion against the British with many debates and myths surrounding the true facts. -
Tea Act
On this day in 1773, the British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government and, thus, granting it a de facto monopoly on the American tea trade. Because all legal tea entered the colonies through England, allowing the East India Company to pay lower taxes in Britain also allowed it to sell tea more cheaply in the colonies. -
1st Continental Congress
Delegates from all thirteen colonies met in 1774 in Philadelphia to deliberate responses to increased British oppression. This convention, the First Continental Congress, formally declared that colonists should have the same rights as Englishmen; they also established to form the Continental Association, which called for the suspension of trade with Great Britain. -
2nd Continental Congress
On May 10, 1775, what became known as the Second Continental Congress was called into session as the British stormed Boston in an attempt to arrest the patriots that openly voiced their criticisms against the crown. With the bloody fights at Concord and Lexington fresh in their minds, the delegates of twelve of the thirteen Colonies came together in Philadelphia to draw up a statement of positions in regard to the actions of the British Parliament. -
Common Sense
The first patriot to speak out for this cause was Thomas Paine, who presented his ideas in the pamphlet Common Sense. The pamphlet was first published and circulated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 9, 1776—nine months after the first clash between American and British soldiers in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Six months after the publication of Common Sense, the Continental Congress formally issued Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. -
Declaration of Independence Signed
Congress asked Thomas Jefferson and others to write the Declaration of Independence. They needed a document to declare why the colonies had to become independent of Britain. In this document, Jefferson wrote what many Americans believed about their rights. Jefferson wrote that people have the right to live, the right to be free, and the right to seek happiness. The Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776.