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mayflower compact
The Mayflower Compact created laws for Mayflower Pilgrims and non-Pilgrims alike for the good of their new colony. It was a short document that established that: The colonists would remain loyal subjects to King James, despite their need for self-governance. -
Navigation Act
The Navigation Act 1651, long titled An Act for increase of Shipping, and Encouragement of the Navigation of this Nation, was passed on 9 October 1651 by the Rump Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell. It authorized the Commonwealth to regulate England's international trade, as well as the trade with its colonies. -
Stamp Act
British Parliament finally passed the Stamp Act or Duties in American Colonies Act. It required colonists to pay taxes on every page of printed paper they used. The tax also included fees for playing cards, dice, and newspapers. The reaction in the colonies was immediate -
Chartering Act
Quartering Act, (1765), in American colonial history, the British parliamentary provision (actually an amendment to the annual Mutiny Act) requiring colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns or villages -
Sugar act
The Sugar Act 1764 or Sugar Act 1763, also known as the American Revenue Act 1764 or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on 5 April 1764. -
Declaratory Act
British King George III approved repealing the Stamp Act and passed the Declaratory Act on March 18, 1766. This Declaratory Act date marked when the British Parliament asserted that they had the absolute right to tax the American colonies, as they did in Great Britain. -
Declaratory act
The American Colonies Act 1766, commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the amendment of the Sugar Act. -
Townshend Act
On 29 June 1767 Parliament passed the Townshend Acts. They bear the name of Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is—as the chief treasurer of the British Empire—in charge of economic and financial matters. -
Boston Massacre
Late in the afternoon of March 5, 1770, British sentries guarding the Boston Customs House shot into a crowd of civilians, killing three men and injuring eight, two of them mortally. -
Boston massacre
British sentries guarding the Boston Customs House shot into a crowd of civilians, killing three men and injuring eight, two of them mortally. -
Tea Act/Boston tea party
The Tea Act of 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive -
Molasses Act
The Molasses Act 1733 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that imposed a tax of six pence per gallon on imports of molasses from non-British colonies. Parliament created the act largely at the insistence of large plantation owners in the British West Indies. -
General Thomas Gage takes over Boston
Thomas Gage, a decorated war hero in the French and Indian War, served as the commander in chief of the British Forces in North America from 1763-74. He arrived in Boston in May 1774 to replace Thomas Hutchinson as royal governor of Massachusetts. -
Intolerable Act
the new Quartering Act applied to all of British America and gave colonial governors the right to requisition unoccupied buildings to house British troops. -
Quebec Act
In June 1774, the Quebec Act was first passed by the British House of Commons. It was later adopted by the House of Lords. It received Royal Assent on 22 June 1774 and was put into effect on 1 May 1775. In many ways, the Act was shaped by the views of Murray and his successor, Guy Carleton. -
First Continental Congress
Spurred by local pressure groups, colonial legislatures empowered delegates to attend a Continental Congress which would set terms for a boycott. The colony of Connecticut was the first to respond. The Congress first met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, with delegates from each of the 13 colonies except Georgia. -
Paul Revere's Ride
Paul Revere and his historic ride to warn the town that the British soldiers were coming. It details Revere making the plan with the other soldier and continues through his ride and the resulting interaction between the British and American soldiers. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were some of the leading military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge -
Fort Ticonderoga
The capture of Fort Ticonderoga was the first offensive victory for American forces in the Revolutionary War. It secured the strategic passageway north to Canada and netted the patriots an important cache of artillery. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was the late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and its associated Revolutionary War, which established American independence from the British Empire. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775 during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved