American Revolution Timeline and Key Events

Vocabulary flashcards covering key acts, events, battles, and documents leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War.

(1764)

Sugar Act: Tax on sugar/molasses and stricter enforcement of trade laws to raise money from the colonies.

(1765)

Quartering Act: Required colonists to provide housing and supplies for British soldiers.

(1765)

Stamp Act: Tax on printed materials such as newspapers, legal documents, and licenses.

(1766)

Declaratory Act: Britain declared it had the right to make laws for the colonies in all cases.

(1767)

Townshend Acts: Taxes on imported goods such as glass, paper, paint, lead, and tea.

(1770)

Boston Massacre: British soldiers fired on a crowd, killing five colonists; Patriots used it to create anti-British support.

(1772–1775)

Committees of Correspondence: Colonial groups that shared information and organized resistance against Britain.

(1773)

Tea Act: Law that gave the British East India Company an advantage in selling tea in the colonies.

(1773)

Boston Tea Party: Colonists protested the Tea Act by dumping British tea into Boston Harbor.

(1774)

Intolerable Acts: Punitive laws that punished Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party.

(1774)

First Continental Congress: Meeting of colonial delegates to coordinate resistance to Britain.

(1775)

Lexington & Concord: First battles of the American Revolution between colonists and British troops.

(1775)

Olive Branch Petition: Final attempt by the colonists to make peace with King George III.

(1776)

Declaration of Independence: Document declaring that the 13 colonies were independent from Britain.

(1777)

Battle of Saratoga: Major American victory that helped convince France to support the American Revolution.

(1781)

Battle of Yorktown: American and French forces defeated Cornwallis; major final victory of the Revolution.

(1783)

Treaty of Paris: Treaty that ended the Revolutionary War and recognized American independence.