What was the date of the Boston Tea Party, the 1773 protest against Britain's tea policies?

The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, when colonists protested Britain's tea policies by destroying tea in Boston Harbor.

Members of the Sons of Liberty boarded three merchant ships: Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver. Disguised in ways later associated with Native American imagery, they threw 340 or 342 chests of East India Company tea into the harbor. The protest opposed the Tea Act and the broader principle of taxation without representation.

The event followed weeks of political tension. British law required the Dartmouth to unload its cargo and pay duties, while Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to let the ship leave without complying. Thousands gathered near the Old South Meeting House before the destruction began.

Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures closed Boston Harbor and changed Massachusetts's government, helping unite resistance across the colonies. The protest was not the start of the war; the Battles of Lexington and Concord followed in April 1775.