On what date did the Boston Tea Party take place, a major prelude to America’s founding?

The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773. Protesters in Boston Harbor destroyed tea owned by the British East India Company to oppose Parliament’s colonial policies.

The immediate background was the Tea Act of 1773. That law allowed the East India Company to sell tea in the colonies under favorable conditions, but many colonists objected to the company’s privileges and to Parliament’s assertion of taxation authority without colonial representation.

Members of the Sons of Liberty and other participants boarded tea ships and dumped hundreds of chests into the harbor. Accounts commonly give the total as 340 or 342 chests, reflecting differences in surviving records.

The British government responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures intensified resistance and helped create the political crisis that led to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775.