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French/Indian War
The French and Indian War was the bloodiest American war in the 18th century. It took more lives than the American Revolution, involved people on three continents, including the Caribbean. The war was the product of an imperial struggle, a clash between the French and English over colonial territory and wealth. -
The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. -
Townshend Act
The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. The Townshend Acts were met with resistance in the colonies, -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre (the killing of five men by British soldiers on March 5, 1770) was the culmination of civilian-military tensions that had been growing since royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768. The soldiers were in Boston to keep order in face of the growing discontent with the heavy taxation imposed by the Townshend acts. -
Boston Tea Party
This was what ultimately compelled a group of Sons of Liberty members on the night of December 16, 1773 to disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians, board three ships moored in Boston Harbor, and destroy over 92,000 pounds of tea. The Tea Act was the final straw in a series of unpopular policies and taxes imposed by Britain on her American colonies. -
Tea Act
1773 Act that gave a monopoly on tea sales to the East India Company. In other words, American colonists could buy no tea unless it came from that company. Why? Well, the East Indian Company wasn't doing so well, and the British wanted to give it some more business. The Tea Act lowered the price on this East India tea so much that it was way below tea from other suppliers. -
Intolerable acts
The Intolerable Acts were laws that were really punishments that King George III put on the colonies. He did this to the Colonists because he wanted to punish them for dumping tea into the harbor at the Boston Tea Party. The Quakers petitioned King George to repeal or end the acts, but he said that the colonies must submit to these English laws. -
1st and 2nd Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
Lexington and Concord
On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. Many more battles followed, and in 1783 the colonists formally won their independence. -
Publishing of Common Sense
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. In clear, simple language it explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution to become an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places.
