The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773.
The protest occurred in Boston Harbor after Parliament passed the Tea Act. Members of the Sons of Liberty opposed taxation without colonial representation and boarded ships carrying East India Company tea. They dumped hundreds of chests into the harbor rather than allow the tea to be unloaded.
The action was not the start of the Revolutionary War; the Battles of Lexington and Concord followed in April 1775. However, Britain responded to the tea protest with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures increased tensions between Britain and the colonies.
A common mix-up is confusing the Boston Tea Party with the Boston Massacre, which occurred on March 5, 1770. The tea protest was a specific event in the growing crisis that preceded independence.