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Period: to
Revolutionary War
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Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris was signed by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Britain's victory over France and Spain during the Seven Years' War. The signing of the treaty formally ended the Seven Years' War, otherwise known as the French and Indian War -
Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, in which it forbade settlers from settling past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains.The purpose of the proclamation was to organize Great Britain's new North American empire and to stabilize relations with Native Americans. -
Stamp Act
The stamp act imposed a direct tax by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America, and it required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London. It put many merchants and manufacturers into debt. -
Quatering Act
Parliament ordered local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations. It also required citizens to provide food for any British soldiers. This act caused tension between the colonies and led to the Revoultionary War. -
The Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. 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. -
Boston Massacre
British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. The presence of British troops in the city of Boston was increasingly unwelcome. The riot began when about 50 citizens attacked a British sentinel. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a nonviolent political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Disguised as Indians, the demonstrators destroyed the entire supply of tea sent by the East India Company in defiance of the American boycott of tea carrying a tax the Americans had not authorized. -
Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams was an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution -
Intolerable Acts
The Patriot name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Massachusetts after the Boston Tea party. The acts stripped Massachusetts of self-government and historic rights, triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, author, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of two highly influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. -
Loyalists
Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. Historians have estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of the 2.5 million whites in the colonies were Loyalists -
Paul Revere
Paul Revere is most famous for alerting the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America. -
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and planned to surrender it to the British forces. -
Patriots
Patriots were those colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies that violently rebelled against British control during the American Revolution and in July 1776 declared the United States of America an independent nation. -
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
John Adams
John Adams was the second president of the United States. An American Founding Father, Adams was a statesman, diplomat, and a leading advocate of American independence from Great Britain. -
Battles of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga decided the fate of British General John Burgoyne's army in the American War of Independence and are generally regarded as a turning point in the war. Two battles were fought eighteen days apart on the same ground, 9 miles (14 km) south of Saratoga, New York. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Battle or Siege of Yorktown was a battle led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British lord and Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis. The siege was the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War. -
Treaty of Paris (1783)
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America and its allies on the other.
