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Boston Tea Party
When British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what was known as the Boston Massacre. After December 1773, when a band of Bostonians dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor -
first shots of the revolutionary war
The Continental Congress voted to meet again in May 1775 to consider further action, but by that time violence had already broken out. On April 19, local militiamen clashed with British soldiers in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, marking the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War. -
July 4
July 4, the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence, drafted by a committee including Franklin and John Adams but written mainly by Jefferson. That same month, determined to crush the rebellion, the British government sent a large fleet, along with more than 34,000 troops to New York. -
the battle continues...
On June 28,1778, as British forces under Sir Henry Clinton attempted to withdraw from Philadelphia to NY, Washington’s army attacked them near Monmouth, NJ The battle effectively ended in a draw, as the Americans held their ground. On July 8, a French fleet commanded by the Comte d’Estaing arrived off the Atlantic, ready to do battle with the British. A attack on the British at Newport, RI, in late July failed, and for the most part the war settled into a stalemate phase in the North.
