Boston hosted the 1773 Boston Tea Party, a pre-Revolution event connected with the history remembered by America250.
On December 16, 1773, colonists in Boston boarded ships and threw tea belonging to the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. They were protesting taxation and Parliament’s authority, especially the Tea Act, which gave the company favorable commercial treatment while leaving a tax on tea.
The protest was organized in the tense political atmosphere of Massachusetts and involved people associated with resistance to British rule. British authorities responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists, which punished Massachusetts and helped encourage colonial cooperation.
The Boston Tea Party did not begin the Revolutionary War by itself. Fighting started later, in April 1775, at Lexington and Concord. It was one important escalation in a chain of disputes over representation, taxation, trade, and imperial authority.