The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, when protestors in Boston threw East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. The action opposed British taxation and Parliament’s Tea Act, especially the principle of taxation without representation.
Members of the Sons of Liberty organized the protest after Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to let tea ships leave without unloading their cargo and paying the required duty. Protestors boarded the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver and destroyed hundreds of tea chests.
Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many American colonists. These measures punished Massachusetts and tightened imperial control, increasing colonial resistance. The Battles of Lexington and Concord followed in April 1775, beginning the armed conflict that became the American Revolutionary War.