The American Revolution
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was organized and carried out by a group of Patriots led by Samuel Adams known as the Sons of Liberty. The Sons of Liberty were made up of males from all walks of colonial society, and among its membership were artisans, craftsmen, business owners, tradesmen, apprentices, and common laborers who organized to defend their rights, and to protest and undermine British rule. Famous Boston Patriots who were members of the Sons of Liberty included John Adams, John Hancock, James Otis, Josiah Quincy, Paul Revere, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Incited by the Sons of Liberty, over 5,000 people gathered at the Old South Meeting House, the largest public building in Boston at the time, at 10:00 AM on December 16, 1773, to decide what was to be done about the tea and to plan the Boston Tea Party.
Boston Massacre
On the night of March 5, 1770, members of the British Army killed five civilian men in Boston. This incident is known as the Boston Massacre, and is also called the Boston Riot. Aside from the lives lost, can you guess what this incident resulted to? If you are guessing fear among Colonists, then you are incorrect. But if you guessed unrest among them, then your guess is certainly correct.
Proclamation of 1763
The end of the French and Indian War in 1763 was a cause for great celebration in the colonies, for it removed several ominous barriers and opened up a host of new opportunities for the colonists. The French had effectively hemmed in the British settlers and had, from the perspective of the settlers, played the "Indians" against them. The first thing on the minds of colonists was the great western frontier that had opened to them when the French ceded that contested territory to the British. The royal proclamation of 1763 did much to dampen that celebration. The proclamation, in effect, closed off the frontier to colonial expansion.
Intolerable Acts
Parliament was utterly fed up with colonial antics. The British could tolerate strongly worded letters or trade boycotts. They could put up with defiant legislatures and harassed customs officials to an extent.But they saw the destruction of 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company as wanton destruction of property by Boston thugs who did not even have the courage to admit responsibility.
Battle of Saratoga
On October 17, 1777, 5,895 British and Hessian troops surrendered their arms. General John Burgoyne had lost 86 percent of his expeditionary force that had triumphantly marched into New York from Canada in the early summer of 1777. The DIVIDE-AND-CONQUER strategy that Burgoyne presented to British ministers in London was to invade America from Canada by advancing down the Hudson Valley to Albany. There, he would be joined by other British troops under the command of Sir William Howe. Howe would be bringing his troops north from New Jersey and New York City.
Battle of Yorktown
The Battle of Yorktown was a military conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in North America during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). The year and date that the Battle of Yorktown took place on Tuesday, October 09, 1781. The battlefield in which the British and American Forces fought during the Battle of Yorktown was located in Yorktown, Virginia. The Battle of Yorktown ended in victory for the American colonists. On October 19, 1781, the British laid down their arms and surrendered. The British army was decimated and the American Revolutionary war was virtually over.
John Locke
The great John Locke proposed the tabula rasa, the blank sheet on which experience writes human characters. Outside philosophy, the empty page is an image to terrify writers. One exception is a new John Locke, an American businessman who has taken to producing fiction at a rate that suggests he shares his namesake's passion for grappling with the blank sheet – although it must be admitted that this is about as far as the parallel stretches. Don't look to the new Locke for guidance on the continuity of the self or epistemological distinctions between primary and secondary qualities.
Thomas Paine
England-born political philosopher and writer Thomas Paine (1737-1809) helped shape many of the ideas that marked the Age of Revolution. Published in 1776, his highly popular “Common Sense” was the first pamphlet to advocate American independence. After writing the “Crisis” papers during the American Revolution, Paine returned to Europe and offered his defense of the French Revolution with “The Rights of Man.” His political views led to a stint in prison; after his release, he produced his last great pamphlets, “The Age of Reason,” an exposition of institutionalized religion, and “Agrarian Justice,” a call for land reform.