The Boston Tea Party took place in Boston on December 16, 1773.
Colonists and members of the Sons of Liberty protested the Tea Act, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the American colonies. They objected especially to taxation without colonial representation, even though the act made some tea cheaper.
That night, protesters boarded ships in Boston Harbor and threw 342 chests of tea into the water. The incident was not a general attack on British goods; it specifically targeted tea shipments. Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists, which tightened control over Massachusetts.
The protest helped turn a dispute over taxation into a broader imperial crisis. It occurred nearly three years before independence was declared and became one of the best-known events leading to the American Revolutionary War.