December 16th marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a political action in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown into Boston Harbor as a protest targeting the taxation of tea from Britain. This rebellion against taxation without representation was just one precursor to the American Revolution, resulting in thirteen of Great Britain's North American colonies winning political independence.  

To mark this anniversary, the History Discussion Group’s December meeting (taking place via Zoom at 4:30pm on Tuesday, December 12th) will examine the factors and events that led to the Revolutionary War and the eventual formation of the United States of America. 

The background material below consists of short, concise readings.  Although there is not a requirement to read any of these in order to attend the meeting, we do encourage participants to review some of the materials in order to ensure we all come into the discussion with a basic understanding of the topic.

Timelines

https://timeline.k8s.wgbhdigital.org/timeline/133/

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/americanrevolution/timeline.htm

The French and Indian War

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/french-indian-war#:~:text=The%20French%20and%20Indian%20War%20began%20in%201754%20and%20ended,ultimately%20to%20the%20American%20Revolution.

Proclamation Line of 1763

https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/proclamation-line-of-1763/

The Stamp Act of 1765

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-stamp-act-plants-seeds-of-the-revolution

The Townshend Acts

https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-acts

The Boston Massacre

https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/boston-massacre-american-revolutionary-war?language_content_entity=en

The Boston Tea Party

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-boston-tea-party-lights-a-fuse

The Intolerable Acts of 1774

https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-coercive-intolerable-acts-of-1774

How Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Helped Inspire the American Revolution

https://www.history.com/news/thomas-paine-common-sense-revolution

Dig Deeper:

Three Things You Didn’t Know About the American Revolution

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/three-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-american-revolution/

Loyalists 

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/the-road-to-independence/loyalists-during-the-american-revolution.php

Slaughter, Thomas P. Independence: The Tangled Roots of the American Revolution. New York: Hill & Wang, 2014.