The American Revolution in 3 Minutes

Transcript

Imagine being taxed by a government three thousand miles away — one where you have no representative and no vote. That's exactly how American colonists felt in the seventeen sixties, and it's the spark that lit the American Revolution.

Start with the causes. After an expensive war with France, Britain needed money and taxed the colonies — the Stamp Act, then taxes on goods like tea. The colonists' rallying cry was "no taxation without representation." Tension exploded in seventeen seventy-three, when colonists dumped an entire shipment of British tea into Boston Harbor — the Boston Tea Party. Britain punished Boston harshly, and the colonies moved toward open resistance.

The fighting began in April seventeen seventy-five, at the battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, when British troops clashed with colonial militia. The next year, on July fourth, seventeen seventy-six, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted mainly by Thomas Jefferson. It announced to the world that the thirteen colonies were now free and independent states.

Winning that independence took a long war. George Washington commanded the Continental Army, holding it together through brutal stretches like the winter at Valley Forge. The great turning point came in seventeen seventy-seven at the Battle of Saratoga — an American victory so convincing that France formally joined the war on the American side, bringing money, troops, and a navy. The final major battle came in seventeen eighty-one at Yorktown, Virginia, where Washington's army, with crucial French help, trapped the British under General Cornwallis and forced his surrender. The Treaty of Paris in seventeen eighty-three made independence official.

Now for a misconception worth fixing: the Revolution did not end in seventeen seventy-six. The Declaration announced independence, but the war ground on for seven more years — Saratoga, Valley Forge, and Yorktown all came after it. Declaring independence and winning it were two very different things.

Here's your recap: British taxes without representation drove the colonies to protest, then to war in seventeen seventy-five, and to declare independence in seventeen seventy-six. Saratoga brought France into the fight, Yorktown ended the fighting in seventeen eighty-one, and the Treaty of Paris sealed independence in seventeen eighty-three. Now take the quiz below and see how much of the story you can retell.