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Navigation Acts of 1651
Navigation Acts were a series of laws that restricted the use of foreign ships for trade between Britain and its colonies. They began in 1651 and ended 200 years later. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War. The war was fought between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France, as well as Native American allies. -
Proclamation of 1763
On October 7, 1763, King George III issued a proclamation that forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. In so doing, he hoped to placate Native Americans who had sided against him during the recently concluded Seven Years' War. -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act, also known as the American Revenue Act or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on April 5, 1764. -
Stamp Act
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 British Crown. -
Declaratory Act
The American Colonies Act 1766 (6 Geo 3 c 12), commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765. -
The Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed, beginning in 1767, by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The acts are named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the programme. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party (initially referred to by John Adams as "the Destruction of the Tea in Boston") was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name 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. -
1st Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
2nd Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun.
