The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, before the independence movement celebrated by America250.
That night, members of the Sons of Liberty boarded tea ships in Boston Harbor and threw East India Company tea into the water. The protest opposed Parliament's Tea Act and the broader principle of taxation without colonial representation.
The event followed weeks of tension over whether the tea ships could unload their cargo. A large public meeting at the Old South Meeting House failed to persuade Governor Thomas Hutchinson to let the ships return without paying the required duty.
The destruction of the tea led Parliament to pass the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures tightened British control over Massachusetts and helped unite resistance across the colonies.
The Boston Tea Party did not occur during the Revolutionary War itself. It happened nearly two years before the Battles of Lexington and Concord began the war in April 1775.