The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, a protest remembered in America's 250-year history.
That night, colonists in Boston boarded ships and destroyed 342 chests of East India Company tea by throwing them into Boston Harbor. The protest opposed the Tea Act, which allowed the company to sell tea more directly in the American colonies while retaining a tax that many colonists viewed as unconstitutional taxation without representation.
The destruction was organized by resistance activists including the Sons of Liberty. Participants took care to damage the tea rather than steal other cargo, although the economic loss was substantial. The event became one of the best-known acts of colonial resistance to British rule.
Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures intensified opposition and helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774. The Boston Tea Party is often confused with earlier Boston protests, including the 1770 Boston Massacre, but the events occurred three years apart.