-
On April 5, 1775 after King George III ignored the Olive Branch Petition. Which was a plead to restore peace, the idea of the war came into play.
-
(1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the thirteen “United Colonies” which expelled royal officials in 1775, set up the Second Continental Congress, formed an army, and declared their independence as a new nation, the United States of America, in 1776. The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby the colonists overthrew British rule. By 1778 major European powers had joined against Britain.
-
On April 18, 1775 Paul Revere and William Dawes saw the 700 British troops that were sent to find and destroy a cache of colonial weapons and supplies at Concord. "The British are coming! The British are coming!"
-
On April 19, 1775, British and American soldiers exchanged fire in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. On the night of April 18, the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, commanded by King George III to suppress the rebellious Americans, had ordered 700 British soldiers, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn, to seize the colonists' military stores in Concord, some 20 miles west of Boston.
-
By the time the Second Continental Congress met, the American Revolutionary War had already started with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Congress was to take charge of the war effort. For the first few months of the struggle, the Patriots had carried on their struggle in an ad-hoc and uncoordinated manner. They had seized arsenals, driven out royal officials, and besieged the British army in the city of Boston
-
On June 14, 1775, the Congress voted to create the Continental Army out of the militia units around Boston and quickly appointed Congressman George Washington of Virginia as commanding general of the Continental Army.
-
On July 6, 1775 Congress approved a Declaration of Causes outlining the rationale and necessity for taking up arms in the Thirteen Colonies.
-
On July 8, Congress extended the Olive Branch Petition to the British Crown as a final attempt at reconciliation. However, it was received too late to do any good.
