WAR & EMPIRE
Begun over control of the Ohio River Valley in 1754, this conflict was the North American theater of the Seven Years' War.
What is the French and Indian War?
Colonists chanting "no taxation without representation" protested this 1765 law, the first direct tax on the colonies, levied on paper goods.
What is the Stamp Act?
The "shot heard round the world" was fired in April 1775 at these two Massachusetts towns.
What are Lexington and Concord?
This 1777 victory in New York convinced France to become an open ally of the United States.
What is the Battle of Saratoga?
Ratified in 1781, this first national constitution created only a "firm league of friendship" among the states.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
Benjamin Franklin proposed this 1754 plan of colonial unity, promoted with his "Join, or Die" cartoon, but the colonies rejected it.
What is the Albany Plan of Union?
This 1770 clash in the streets of Boston, spread by Patriot propaganda, left five colonists dead, including Crispus Attucks.
What is the Boston Massacre?
Meeting in 1775, this body created the Continental Army and named George Washington its commander.
What is the Second Continental Congress?
After crossing the icy Delaware on Christmas night 1776, Washington won a surprise victory at this New Jersey town.
What is Trenton?
Under the Articles, Congress could only request money from the states because it lacked this power.
What is the power to tax?
This 1763 treaty ended the French and Indian War and gave Britain Canada and all French territory east of the Mississippi River.
What is the Treaty of Paris (1763)?
In December 1773, colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped 342 chests of this company's tea into Boston Harbor.
What is the British East India Company?
Thomas Paine's January 1776 pamphlet argued for independence in plain language ordinary colonists could understand.
What is Common Sense?
During the harsh winter of 1777-78 at this Pennsylvania camp, Baron von Steuben drilled the Continental Army into a professional force.
What is Valley Forge?
This 1787 law banned slavery in the Northwest Territory and set the process by which territories could become states.
What is the Northwest Ordinance?
Issued after Pontiac's Rebellion, this royal order banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.
What is the Proclamation of 1763?
Parliament punished Boston for the Tea Party with these acts, which closed the port and curtailed Massachusetts self-government.
What are the Intolerable Acts (Coercive Acts)?
The Declaration of Independence's principal author, he wrote that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Who is Thomas Jefferson?
Trapped by American and French forces on land and a French fleet at sea in 1781, Cornwallis surrendered at this Virginia port.
What is Yorktown?
This 1786-87 uprising of indebted Massachusetts farmers against foreclosures exposed how powerless the Confederation was to respond.
What is Shays' Rebellion?
Fighting the war roughly doubled this British burden, leading Parliament to look to the colonies for new revenue.
What is the national debt?
This secret network of Patriot activists, organized by Samuel Adams, led boycotts and protests against British policy.
What are the Sons of Liberty?
Sent in July 1775 as a last appeal to the king, this petition professed colonial loyalty and asked George III to halt the fighting.
What is the Olive Branch Petition?
This 1783 treaty recognized American independence and extended the new nation's western border to the Mississippi River.
What is the Treaty of Paris (1783)?
This compromise created a two-house Congress: equal representation in the Senate, population-based representation in the House.
What is the Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise)?