American Revolution timeline: 20 dates that made a nation

The American Revolution runs from Britain’s first new taxes in 1765 to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Fighting lasted eight years, from Lexington and Concord in April 1775 to the surrender at Yorktown in October 1781. The table below lists the 20 dates that decided it.

Twenty dates is enough to tell the whole story. The rest of this guide walks through them in five stages, so each date has a reason to stay in your head.

The American Revolution was caused by Britain taxing and governing colonies that had no vote in Parliament. After the costly Seven Years’ War, London passed the Stamp Act and Townshend duties to raise money. Colonists answered with boycotts and protest, then violence in Boston, until Britain closed the city’s port in 1774.

Notice how each British move made the next protest bigger. The Stamp Act brought petitions. The Townshend Acts brought boycotts and soldiers on Boston’s streets. The soldiers brought the Boston Massacre, and the tea tax brought 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

This is where The American Revolution coloring book begins: with the spark of taxation without representation, then the Boston Massacre of 1770. You color the night on King Street, and the caption beside the scene tells you how five deaths became a rallying cry.

The war began on April 19, 1775, when British troops marched from Boston to seize militia weapons at Concord. Shots were fired at Lexington, the militia fought back at Concord’s North Bridge, and the British retreated under fire all the way to Boston. Within two months the colonies had an army and a commander.

Bunker Hill in June showed both sides what was coming. The British took the hill, but only after three assaults and more than 1,000 casualties. Two weeks later George Washington took command of the new Continental Army outside Boston.

Lexington and Concord is one of the six turning points you color in the book. It is a good place to slow down, because this is the moment the protest becomes a war.

In 1776 the colonists stopped fighting for their rights as British subjects and started fighting for a separate country. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in January, sold tens of thousands of copies and made the case in plain language. On July 4 the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Independence nearly died within months. Washington lost New York after the Battle of Long Island in August, and by December his army was melting away. Then, on the night of December 25, he crossed the frozen Delaware and took Trenton the next morning, followed by Princeton a week later.

If you are teaching this period, the change from rights to independence is the idea students most often miss. Our guide to learning history through coloring explains why a dated scene and a short caption make that kind of idea stick better than a list.

The turning point of the American Revolution was the American victory at Saratoga in October 1777. General Burgoyne surrendered an entire British army, and the news convinced France that the Americans could win. France signed a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778, bringing money, soldiers and a navy into the war.

Between those two dates came Valley Forge. Washington’s army spent the winter of 1777 to 1778 short of food, shoes and blankets, and thousands died of disease. In the spring, drilled by the Prussian officer Baron von Steuben, it marched out as a professional force.

Valley Forge and the French alliance are two of the six turning points in the book. The Valley Forge pages are some of the most absorbing to color: a winter camp, an army close to breaking, and a caption explaining how it survived.

The American Revolution ended in two steps. Militarily, it ended at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, when General Cornwallis surrendered after Washington’s army and the French fleet trapped him on the Virginia coast. Officially, it ended with the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, when Britain recognized American independence.

The road to Yorktown ran through the South. Britain took Savannah and then Charleston in 1780, capturing over 5,000 American soldiers. American victories at Kings Mountain and Cowpens turned the southern campaign around and pushed Cornwallis north into Virginia.

Yorktown is the final scene of the book’s journey. You finish where the nation began, with a caption that ties the surrender back to the French alliance you colored a few pages earlier.

The key people of the American Revolution include George Washington, who commanded the army; Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration; Benjamin Franklin, who won the French alliance; and Thomas Paine, who argued for independence. On the British side, George III, General Howe, Burgoyne and Cornwallis shaped the war.

Names stick better with a face attached. That is why each scene in the book pairs a figure with a moment, so Washington is never just a name in a list.

To use this timeline with a coloring book, read one stage, then color the matching scene before moving on. Twenty minutes of coloring per stage is enough. The scene gives the date somewhere to live, and the short caption beside it does the explaining a textbook would.

The American Revolution coloring book follows the same order as this guide, with 30+ coloring pages and a verified fact on every scene. It is an instant PDF: print a page tonight on A4 or US Letter, reprint your favorite scenes, or color on a tablet. Our PDF vs physical coloring book guide helps if you are deciding between the two formats.

Teachers and homeschool parents often print one scene per lesson. For a classroom or a history-loving friend, see our gifts for history teachers and best gifts for history lovers.

Want the next chapter? The Revolution and Civil War bundle pairs this book with The Civil War coloring book, which picks up the American story in 1861. To see how that war unfolded, read our Civil War battles in order.

Twenty dates, five stages, one story: taxes, protest, war, independence and an alliance that tipped the balance at Yorktown. Learn them once in order and they stay.

Print the first scene tonight and start with the spark in Boston. By the time you color the surrender at Yorktown, the timeline will be yours.