Which December 1773 protest involved colonists throwing tea into Boston Harbor?

The Boston Tea Party was the December 1773 protest in which colonists threw tea into Boston Harbor.

On the night of December 16, participants boarded three ships and destroyed a large shipment of tea belonging to the British East India Company. The protest opposed the Tea Act, which allowed the company to sell tea directly to the colonies while retaining a tax that many colonists regarded as an assertion of Parliament’s right to tax them.

The event was organized amid resistance led by the Sons of Liberty. Participants took care not to damage the ships or steal other cargo, although the tea’s destruction represented a major financial loss. Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts in the colonies. Those measures helped prompt the First Continental Congress in 1774 and intensified the crisis that led to war.