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French and Indian War
The Seven Years’ War (called the French and Indian War in the colonies) lasted from 1756 to 1763, forming a chapter in the imperial struggle between Britain and France called the Second Hundred Years’ War. In the early 1750s, France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought it into conflict with the claims of the British colonies, especially Virginia. During 1754 and 1755, the French defeated in quick succession the young George Washington. -
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. Enforcement was so weak, however, that it did very little to curb the westward flow of pioneers. Even prominent figures such as George Washington paid it no heed, except as a source of anti-British sentiment leading up to the American Revolution. -
Stamp Act
Hoping to raise sufficient funds to defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years' War, the British government passes the notorious Stamp Act on this day in 1765. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, including everything from broadsides and insurance policies to playing cards and dice. -
Boston Massacre
On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that lacked American representation. -
Townshend Acts
On this fateful day in 1770, the British government moves to mollify outraged colonists by repealing most of the clauses of the hated Townshend Act. Initially passed on June 29, 1767, the Townshend Act constituted an attempt by the British government to consolidate fiscal and political power over the American colonies by placing import taxes on many of the British products bought by Americans, including lead, paper, paint, glass and tea. -
Tea Act
On this day in 1773, 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 on the American tea trade. Because all legal tea entered the colonies through England, allowing the East India Company to pay lower taxes in Britain also allowed it to sell tea more cheaply in the colonies. -
Boston Tea Party
In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, known as the "Boston Tea Party," was in protest of the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. -
Intolerable Acts
The Coercive Acts were a series of four acts established by the British government. The aim of the legislation was to restore order in Massachusetts and punish Bostonians for their Tea Party, in which members of the revolutionary-minded Sons of Liberty boarded three British tea ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 crates of tea which was nearly $1 million worth in today's money all nto the water to protest the Tea Act. -
Lexington and Concord
It’s midnight, April 1775. Redcoats march from their barracks for Lexington Concord, with orders to arrest the rebel leaders and seize their weapons. Paul Revere, the man who made the Boston Massacre infamous, sets off ahead of them, and alerts the militia. The warning spreads from town to town. farmer John Parker faces off against hundreds of well disciplined red-coats. The militia have virtually no training. The British red-coats have fought to victory on five continents. -
Declaration of Independence
The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence–written largely by Jefferson–in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.
