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

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

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

George Washington drives the British garrison from Boston, and moves south to protect New York

The revolutionary convention of Virginia votes for independence from Britain, and instructs its delegates in Philadelphia to propose this motion

Virginia's motion for independence from Britain is passed at the Continental Congress of the colonies with no opposing vote

Thomas Jefferson's text for the Declaration of Independence is accepted by the Congress in Philadelphia

John Hancock is the first delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence, formally written out on a large sheet of parchment

Congress adopts a new flag for independent America – the stars and stripes

An Indian uprising in Spanish Peru is led by a descendant of the Incas, Tupac Amaru II

Six days of riot in London are triggered by Lord George Gordon leading a march to oppose any degree of Catholic emancipation

Daniel Shays is the most prominent figure in a violent protest movement by farmers against the government of Massachusetts

Tiradentes (the 'puller of teeth') leads the first rebellion against Portuguese rule in Brazil

A pamphlet published in France by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès asks a challenging question, What is the Third Estate?