Reflection Essay Essays (582 words) - Time, World History

Reflection Essay There are so many thing that i learned about this school year, however, the most impactful thing i learned about this school year was the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary war was one of the most important events in shaping the future of not only the United States of America, but the entire modern world. Who knows how different the world would have been if the there was no America, no country to keep the world in balance and try to keep peace, no place where people can pursue religious, political, and financial freedom. A place where people from different cultures can hold government offices and be invited into the population as if they were Americans. Who knows what it would have been like but we should be thankful for what it is now. The United States of America was created from the hard working farmers and homeowners that were sick and tired of taking crap from Great Britain. The Revolutionary War may have happened from 1775 to 1783, however the tension of the war started decades before when Britain started heavily taxing the colonies on everything from tea to bread. One of the major events that greatly increased tensions in the colonies was the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was passed on March 22nd of 1765, this act was imposed of all American colonies and required them to pay taxes for all the paper being used, including everything from court documents to playing cards. The colonies took this as a drastic economic setback and this caused them to start assembling and plotting ways to revolt against the mother country. The most famous display of the colonies anger toward Great Britain was the Boston Tea Party, in which, farmers, business owners, and local revolutionaries came together dressed in the attire of native americans, and overthrew multiple ships containing 342 chests of tea into the water in 1773. The Boston Tea Party was also a statement mad e by the colonies following the Boston Massacre which happened 3 years prior on March 5th of 1770. At this point, Britain took the act as the beginning of a revolution and sent multitudes of soldiers called "Redcoats" to the Americas to join the pre stationed soldiers to intimidate and eradicate any and all who opposed King George the Third. Around 1774 parliament passed what the Patriots dubbed the Intolerable Acts. These acts were a series of punitive laws given to the revolting colonies after the Boston Tea Party, in Britain these acts were referred to as the Coercive Acts. Later in the year on September 5th of 1774 the First Continental Congress was formed by delegates from 12 colonies to react to the Intolerable Acts. The next year on April 18th of 1775 the British governor of Massachusetts ordered the seizure of colonial military storages at Concord, British intentions were discovered and prevented by militiamen on April 19th. On July 4th of 1776, the Second Continental Congress created the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed the 13 colonies as independent from Great Britain, causing Britain to proclaim war on the colonies. The Declaration was mainly drafted by congressman Thomas Jefferson. Following the ratification the Declaration of Independence there were numerous battles including the Battles of Saratoga and the Surrender of Yorktown. The war formally ended with the Treaty of Paris signing on September 3rd of 1783, with Great Britain accepting defeat and acknowledging the colonies freedom.