Road to Revolution Timeline

French and Indian War

Oct 18, 1756

http://www.history.com/topics/french-and-indian-war
The French and Indian war was also known as the Seven Years' War. A series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756. In 1763 peace came and the British received territories that opened the Mississippi Valley to westward expansion.
Funding the war led to an immense national debt for Great Britain, which they felt the Americans should help pay.

Proclamation of 1763

Oct 7, 1763

http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/1763-proclamation-of
At the end of the French and Indian war the British issued a proclamation. It has become one of the cornerstones of Native American law in the United States and Canada.

Stamp Act

Mar 22, 1765

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/stamp-actThe Stamp Act was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonist by the British government. Arguing that only their own representative assemblies could tax them the colonists insisted that the act was wrong and they made a mob of violence to intimidate stamp collectors into stopping.

Townshend Acts

Jun 15, 1767

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-actsA series of acts passed by Parliament of Great Britain. Its a relation to the British colonies in North America. The acts were named after Charles Townshend who is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea, leading to a temporary truce between the two sides in the years before the American Revolution.

Boston Massacre

Mar 5, 1770

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/massacre.htmThe Boston Massacre was a street fight between a "patriot" mob. They threw snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers.Several people were killed this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. The Boston Massacre is remembered as a key event in helping to galvanize the colonial public to the Patriot cause.

Tea Act

May 10, 1773

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/tea-act
The tea act was a series of unpopular policies and taxes imposed by Britain on her American colonies. The policy made a “powder keg” of opposition and resentment among American colonists and was the catalyst of the Boston Tea Party.

Boston Tea Party

Dec 16, 1773

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-tea-partyThe Boston Tea Party started as a protest against taxation. British Parliament adjusted import duties with the passage of the Tea Act in 1773.When consignees in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia rejected tea shipments, merchants in Boston refused to concede to Patriot pressure,Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard.This led to the punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer in war.

Intolerable Acts

Mar 24, 1774

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=active&q=Intolerable+Acts+ American Patriots' term for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor.

Lexington and Concord

Apr 19, 1775

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-lexington-and-concordThe battles of Lexington and Concord is what kicked off the American Revolutionary War. Hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. Many more battles followed this event.

Declaration of Independence

Jul 4, 1776

Americans were continuously fighting for their rights as subjects of the British crown. With the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue.The Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence written largely by Jefferson in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.