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French and Indian War
Also known as the Seven Years’ War, this New World conflict marked another chapter in the long imperial struggle between Britain and France. When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies, a series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756 -
Proclamation Line
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, 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, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
The Sugar Act
Titled The American Revenue Act of 1764. On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British government. The act came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years’ War. The colonists insisted that the act was unconstitutional, and they resorted to mob violence to intimidate stamp collectors into resigning. -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of British acts passed beginning in 1767 and relating to the British American colonies in North America. The acts are named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. A squad of British soldiers, come to support a sentry who was being pressed by a heckling, snowballing crowd, let loose a volley of shots. Three persons were killed immediately and two died later of their wounds. The British officer in charge, Capt. Thomas Preston, was arrested for manslaughter. The Boston Massacre is remembered as a key event in helping to galvanize the colonial public to the Patriot cause. -
Boston Tea Party
This famed act of American colonial defiance served as a protest against taxation. British Parliament adjusted import duties with the passage of the Tea Act in 1773. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This resulted in the passage of the punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts (also called the Coercive Acts) were harsh laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774. They were meant to punish the American colonists for the Boston Tea Party and other protests. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, kicked off the American Revolutionary War. British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. 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, and in 1783 the colonists formally won their independence.