On what date did the Boston Tea Party take place, when colonists protested the Tea Act?

The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, when colonists protested the Tea Act.

That night, a group of colonists boarded ships in Boston Harbor and threw chests of East India Company tea into the water. The protest opposed taxation and the company’s special trading privileges, especially the principle that Parliament could tax colonists without their representation.

The participants were associated with the Sons of Liberty, and many disguised themselves, though the popular image of everyone dressing as a Native American oversimplifies the event. The tea belonged to the British East India Company, not the British government itself.

Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures helped intensify resistance and contributed to the convening of the First Continental Congress.