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Stamp Act, Declaration of Rights and Grievances
The Stamp Act Congress issued a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” which, like the Virginia Resolves (a series of resolutions passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses in response to the Stamp Act of 1765), declared allegiance to the King and “all due subordination” to Parliament, but also reasserted the idea that colonists were entitles to the same right as native Britons. -
Boston Tea Party
On December 16, 1773, a group of about 70 men boarded on three British ships in the Boston harbor and threw their tea cargo in the sea. The destruction of the tea cargo was a protest against the Tea Act which was passed by the British Parliament earlier that year and gave the British East India Company monopoly on tea sale in the colonies. The incident, known as the Boston Tea Party triggered a chain of events that directly led to the American War of Independence. -
Intolerable Acts
In 1774, the British Parliament passed a series of laws collectively known as the Intolerable Acts, with the intent to suppress unrest in colonial Boston by closing the port and placing it under martial law. In response, colonial protestors led by a group called the Sons of Liberty issued a call for a boycott. -
Declaration of Independence
By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence. -
Battles of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga that were fought on the same grounds on September 19 and October 7, 1777, marked the turning point of the American Revolution and encouraged France to openly support the Americans against Britain. -
Battle of Yorktown Begins
This year marked the beginning of government under the Articles of Confederation as well as the surrender of British armed forces in the American Revolution. Also, on September 28, the Battle of Yorktown commenced and led to George Washington being president. This battle also marked the conclusion of the revolution. -
The End
The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War, gaining independence from the British Crown and establishing the United States of America, the first modern democracy and history's first nation explicitly founded as a democracy. -
New Rules
Delegates began arriving to write a new Constitution for the United States. The delegates also began to convene a Constitutional Convention intended to amend the Articles of Confederation. George Washington presided over the Convention.
