A brief History of America’s Independence – 321 Learning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfnrdWYmZus

I. Watch the video and answer True or false quiz? Correct the false statements.

1. By the mid-1750s, Great Britain had 12 colonies in America.

2. The French and Indian War opposed French and Indians to the British and the colonists
3. The French and Indian War lasted 10 years.
4. The French won the war.
5. The British decided to tax the colonists.
6. The colonists were able to express their disapproval in the British parliament.
7. The Boston Tea Party is a historical event in which the colonists threw tea into the sea.
8. The British wanted revenge. This started the American Revolutionary War.
9. The American Revolutionary War started in 1776.
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Part 1
It all started back in 1607 with the first successful English settlement, Jamestown Virginia,
soon followed by Plymouth Massachusetts. Over the next 130 years, cities developed and in
1754 the entire East Coast was established as the 13 British colonies. The British were not the
only ones establishing colonies. The French were starting their own colonies in the area now
known as Canada. Then, the French and British started getting into arguments over territory
and then, from 1756 to 1763, the French and the Indians fought against the British and the
colonists in the French and Indian War also known as the Seven Years War.
The colonists and the British won the war. To make it official, the British and the French
signed the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Not only did the treaty end the war but it also granted the
British control of the territory from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains.
But the war had left the British with a bunch of debt so they taxed the American colonists - a
lot. And then in 1765, they passed the Stamp Act, and all important papers and documents
needed to be produced in Great Britain and have a special stamp and the American colonists
had to pay for this too. Even with new territory colonists were very angry that the British
were robbing them of their hard earning by making them pay unreasonable taxes on things
like tea and postage and there was nothing they could do about it because they didn't even
have any representation in the British Parliament. They had had enough, so they decided to
stop paying taxes completely. But they were just getting started.
In 1773, three British ships delivering tea from the East India tea company were ambushed by
colonists disguised as American Indians. They dumped all the tea into the harbour. This act of
aggression went down in history as the Boston Tea Party.
The British were steamed, and started assembling troops to move against the American
colonists. Paul Revere, a silversmith from Boston, received this top-secret information and
jumped on his horse warning: ‘the British are Coming! The British are coming!’
The next morning, on April 19 1775, the first attacks from the colonists against the British
happened in Lexington Massachusetts, with the shot heard around the world.
This marked the start of the American Revolutionary War.
II. Listen to part 2. Complete the missing words:

Part 2
As a ………………… the colonists and the British fought together against the French in the
French and Indian War. It was an expensive war, so the British started ……………………
the colonists, which they did not like. Tensions continued to …………………………… and
eventually led to fighting. But it was clear things were only going to get
………………………... So, influential leaders from most of the colonies decided to meet to
discuss the next steps. One of their first acts was to fund a militia that was battling with
British troops in Massachusetts, a militia …………………………… George Washington
On June 17 1775 the Revolutionary War raged on. In Charlestown, Massachusetts, the
colonists ……………………………. the British in the Battle of Bunker Hill. The colonists
suffered a devastating loss but still caused some serious damage to the ………………………
troops.
This gave the colonists the boost of confidence they needed But they knew they couldn't
……………………………… Britain alone. Maybe the French could help. Remember those
guys who lost to the British in the French and Indian War. “We look to help you beat those
Brits, but we can't …………………………………….. you are still part of the British
Empire.”
So the representatives of Congress had a decision to make. On ……………………………
1776 in Philadelphia, Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. The United States of
America was born. The 13 colonies became 13 ………………………...
While the American colonists waited for help to arrive, the war continued and later that year
they …………………………………. of New York.
General George Washington knew they needed to start winning some battles or else the
French would not help them.
On ………………………. night, he led his fleet across the Delaware River to sneak up on the
British allies. They braved the icy River and arrived in Trenton, New Jersey. The next
morning the groggy British allies were …………………………………….. to find the town
was surrounded.
General Washington and his troops returned with a victory and then in the fall of 1777
another ……………………………………………. During the two battles of Saratoga, the
colonial militia lost a lot of men but found the strength to keep going, and then, on October
…………………………, they forced 5,000 British troops and their allies to surrender. This
was a large-scale victory for the American colonists and proved to the French that these guys
were the real deal. “These guys are the real deal. We're joining the fights”.
Now, with the …………………. French naval fleet on their side, the Americans battled on
until the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Together the French and the colonists trapped a large
British Army on Virginia's Yorktown Peninsula.
British General Charles Cornwallis and his troops were greatly ………………………………
so he hid inside a cave while the rest of his British army surrendered to George Washington
on October 19 1781, a historic day for the Americans. And then peace negotiations began in
April 1782 and a treaty was drafted by three American representatives. John J, John Adams,
and …………………………………………. . It took almost two years of negotiations until
finally on September 3 1783 King George signed the …………………………………... This
marked the end of the American Revolution.
Great Britain officially acknowledged the United States as an independent nation. After an
exhausting ………………………….. war, freedom reigned. Americans cheered and finally
celebrated their freedom