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Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. -
Boston Tea Party
A political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, a city in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. -
Lexington and Concord
The first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. -
Common Sense
Pamphlet written by Thomas Paine to present to the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of seeking independence was still undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. -
Signing of Declaration of Independence
A statement adopted by the Continental Congress which announced that the 13 American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Surrender at Yorktown
When the British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his troops in Yorktown, Virginia. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris formally ended the United States War for Independence. -
Shays' Rebellion
Protesters protested financial difficulties brought about by a post-war economic depression, a credit squeeze caused by a lack of hard currency, and fiscally harsh government policies instituted in 1785 to solve the state's debt problems. -
Constitutional Convention
The place: the State House in Philadelphia, the same location where the Declaration of Independence had been signed 11 years earlier. For four months, 55 delegates from the several states met to frame a Constitution for a federal republic that would last into "remote futurity." -
Passage of Bill of Rights
First 10 Amendments to the Constitution.They were part of the compromise that ultimately resulted in the passage of the Constitution. These amendments protect individual rights against government intrusion.
