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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. -
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there.
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An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the Crown. -
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers killed three people of a crowd of three or four hundred who were abusing them verbally and throwing various missiles. -
The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government and, thus, granting it a de facto monopoly on the American tea trade. -
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the people of Boston. The Americans were frustrated with the British for taxing them without representation, so they dumped tea into the Boston harbor. -
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government. -
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that became the United States. The primary accomplishment of the First Continental Congress was a compact among the colonies to boycott British goods unless parliament should rescind the Intolerable Acts. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord was the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The British marched into Lexington and Concord intending to suppress the possibility of rebellion by seizing weapons from the colonists. -
The Second Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies in America that united in the American Revolutionary War. -
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. -
TheBattle of Saratoga marked the height of the Saratoga campaign. This battle made Americans the victor over the British in the American Revolutionary War.
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Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War.
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The outcome in Yorktown, Virginia marked the conclusion of the last major battle of the American Revolution and the start of a new nation's independence. It also cemented Washington's reputation as a great leader and eventual election as first president of the United States.
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On this day, 39 of the 55 delegates signed the new document. The document was written to protect the people and states of America. -
Adopting a new frame of government also required Americans to make a leap of faith. Although being written in on Sept 17, 1787, it was out into act June 21, 1778.