What protest took place in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, before the American Revolution?

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

Members of the Sons of Liberty boarded ships and threw tea owned by the British East India Company into the harbor. They opposed the Tea Act and objected to taxation imposed by a Parliament in which the colonists had no elected representatives.

The protest did not immediately begin the Revolutionary War, but it sharply increased tensions between Britain and its North American colonies. Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists, which restricted Massachusetts self-government and closed Boston Harbor.

The event is often remembered through simplified stories about disguises and a single organizer, but hundreds of people were involved in the wider resistance movement. It became one of the best-known acts of colonial protest before the fighting began.