On what date did the Boston Tea Party take place?

The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773.

That night, members of the Sons of Liberty boarded ships in Boston Harbor and threw East India Company tea into the water. The protest followed Parliament’s Tea Act, which allowed the company to sell tea in the American colonies under conditions that many colonists believed threatened local merchants and constitutional rights.

The action was organized in the tense political atmosphere of Boston, where colonial resistance leaders opposed taxation without representation and Parliament’s authority over the colonies. Protesters disguised themselves in ways popularly associated with Indigenous identity, although descriptions of the participants and the event’s organization vary among historical accounts.

The British government responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures restricted Massachusetts self-government and helped encourage intercolonial cooperation. The Tea Party therefore became an important escalation before the fighting at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. It was a protest against imperial policy, not a celebration or ordinary public party.