Boston Tea Party - HISTORY

In 1771, a group of colonists protest thirteen years of increasing British oppression, by attacking merchant ships in Boston Harbor. In retaliation, the British close the port, and inflict even harsher penalties.

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The Tea Act of 1773, an act of Great Britain's Parliament, was the catalyst for some of the most important moments of the lead-up to the Revolutionary War.

Boston Massacre

It was on December 16, 1773 that American rebels disguised themselves as Indians and threw 342 chests of British Tea into the Boston Harbor, paving the way for the American Revolution. December 16 also marks other historical landmarks in America. In 1901 on this day, the world famous anthropologist, Margaret Mead, was born, while forty three years later the deadliest battle for Americans in World War II occurred; the Battle of the Bulge. It was also on this day, in 2002, when President Bush appointed Colin Powell as his Secretary of State. To learn what else happened on December 16, watch this video.

The shooting of several men by British soldiers in 1770 inflames passions in the colonies.

Trace the journey of Boston's Irish population from poverty to power, spearheaded by one man's determination to see justice for his community, in this bonus scene from "America: Promised Land."

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