The Boston Tea Party was the December 1773 protest regarded as a major precursor to the American Revolution commemorated by America250.
On December 16, 1773, members of Boston's Sons of Liberty boarded ships and threw East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. They opposed Parliament's authority to tax the colonies and objected to the Tea Act's favored treatment of the East India Company.
The protest was dramatic, but it was not simply a reaction to an expensive tea price. The Tea Act actually allowed the company to sell tea more cheaply in the colonies. Protesters feared the act represented taxation without colonial representation and a government-backed monopoly.
Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures intensified resistance and helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774. The Boston Tea Party therefore belongs to the chain of events preceding the 1775 outbreak of war.