Empire key dates

• Declaration of independence

  2nd July 1776
• Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' is released

  January 1776
• The Coercive Acts

  1774
• The Boston Tea Party

  16th December 1773
• The Tea Act

  10th May 1773
• The Townshend duties

  1767
• Boston Massacre

  1770
• French join the war of independence

  June 1778
• Spanish join war of independence

  June 1779
• Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga

  1777
• British are defeated at Yorktown

  19th October 1781
• Peace of Paris

  3rd September 1783
• Lord North resigns

  1782
• Britain changes mercantilist system in Ireland so they could trade directly with British colonies

  1780
• Ireland gets legislative independence

  1782
• Articles of confederation approved

  November 1777
• Articles of confederation ratified by every state

  1781
• Seven year war

  1755 - 1763
• The stamp act

  1765
• Stamp act repealed

  1766
• Continental congress

  1774
• Lexington and Concord

  1775
• First settlers arrive at Swan River

  1826
• Thomas Melville's 3rd fleet

  1783
• New South Wales Act

  1823
• Penal settlement in van Dieman's land

  1803
• 2 convicts murdered by aboriginals

  30th May 1788
• Macquarie attacks the Aboriginals after they attacked Hawksbury river

  1816
• First fleet arrives

  18th January 1788
• First Fleet arrive at Sydney Cove

  26th January 1788
• Cook's original expedition

  1771
• Second fleet arrives

  June 1790
• Irish prisoners arrive

  1791
• Last Tasmanian Aboriginal dies

  1876
• Bigge report ordered

  1819
• Lord Dalhousie serves as governor of LC

  1820 - 1828
• Mackenzie's newspaper attacked by Family Compact

  1826
• Cholera epidemics

  1832 and 1834
• Following news of Patriote leader's arrest in LC, M gathers 1000 American farmers for 4 days at Montgomery's tavern on Yonge Street in Toronto, with the general plan to attack FC property

  December 1837
• Rebels march south on Yonge Street and exchange gunfire with small loyalist group, majority of rebels flee

  5th December 1837