Benjamin Franklin's chopped-up snake, urging union of the colonies with the caption 'Join or Die', is the first American political cartoon

Benjamin Franklin proposes to the Albany Congress that the colonies should unite to form a colonial government

Britain passes the Sugar Act, levying duty on sugar, wine and textiles imported into America

Britain passes the Stamp Act, taxing legal documents and newspapers in the American colonies

American campaigners against the Stamp Act organize themselves as the Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts and New York

Britain repeals the Stamp Act, in a major reversal of policy achieved by resistance in the American colonies

The British Chancellor, Charles Townshend, passes a series of acts taxing all glass, lead, paint, paper and tea imported into the American colonies

British troops fire into an unruly crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five

In response to American protests, the British government removes the Townshend duties on all commodities with the exception of tea

Some fifty colonists, disguised as Indians, tip a valuable cargo of tea into Boston harbour as a protest against British tax

As a retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, the British parliament closes Boston's port with the first of its Coercive Acts

Britain's new Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts include the requirement that Massachusetts citizens give board and lodging to British troops

Delegates from twelve American colonies meet in Philadelphia and agree not to import any goods from Britain

Patrick Henry makes a stirring declaration – 'Give me liberty or give me death' – to the Virginia Assembly

General Gage sends a detachment of British troops to seize weapons held by American Patriots at Concord

Paul Revere is one of the US riders taking an urgent warning to Concord, but he is captured on the journey

The first shot of the American Revolution is fired in a skirmish between redcoats and militiamen at Lexington, on the road to Concord

Delegates from the states reassemble in Philadelphia, with hostilities against the British already under way in Massachusetts

Delegates in Philadelphia select George Washington as commander-in-chief of the colonial army

At Bunker Hill, overlooking Boston from the north, the American militiamen prove their worth against British professional soldiers

Delegates to the Continental Congress make a final bid for peace, sending the Olive Branch Petition to George III

Britain declares the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, and sets up a naval blockade of the American coastline

Yankee Doodle is the most popular song with the patriot troops in the American Revolution

George Washington raises on Prospect Hill a new American flag, the British red ensign on a ground of thirteen stripes – one for each colony

In Common Sense, an anonymous pamphlet, English immigrant Thomas Paine is the first to argue that the American colonies should be independent