History in Color

When Parliament repealed the hated Stamp Act in 1766, colonists celebrated — but the episode exposed an irreparable rift. The act had imposed Britain's first direct tax on the colonies, sparking riots, boycotts, and the rallying cry of "no taxation without representation."

Paul Revere's famous engraving — itself copied from Henry Pelham — became colonial America's most powerful piece of protest art. It depicted the March 5, 1770 killing of five colonists by British troops as cold-blooded murder, inflaming public opinion across the thirteen colonies.

On the night of December 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of British East India Company tea into the water — a direct act of political defiance that made confrontation with Britain inevitable.

Britain's punitive response to the Tea Party — closing Boston's port, dissolving Massachusetts self-government — united the colonies in outrage. This satirical engraving depicts America being force-fed British tea while Britannia looks away, capturing the colonial sense of violation and helplessness.

Fifty-six delegates from twelve colonies convened in Philadelphia's Carpenters' Hall in September 1774 — the first formal gathering of colonial representatives to act in concert. They drafted a Declaration of Rights, agreed to boycott British goods, and set the stage for revolution.

This engraving — drawn from eyewitness accounts shortly after the event — is among the earliest visual records of the Revolutionary War. The "shot heard round the world" on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775 marked the first armed clash of the American Revolution, as colonial militiamen faced British regulars on the village common.

Though the colonial militia ultimately retreated, the June 17, 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill — fought mostly on Breed's Hill — demonstrated that American forces could withstand repeated assaults by disciplined British regulars. The British suffered over 1,000 casualties, a sobering preview of the war ahead.

The Siege of Yorktown in October 1781 was the final major land battle of the Revolutionary War. Washington's combined American and French forces surrounded and bombarded Cornwallis's British army for three weeks until his surrender on October 19 — effectively ending the war and securing American independence.

John Trumbull's monumental painting — depicting the presentation of the draft Declaration to Congress on June 28, 1776 — was engraved by Illman Brothers in 1876 for the nation's Centennial. Trumbull personally interviewed survivors and incorporated 36 actual portraits of the men present.

The October 17, 1777 surrender of General John Burgoyne's British army at Saratoga, New York was the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The American victory persuaded France to enter the war as an ally — a decisive shift that ultimately made independence possible. Trumbull's painting captures the moment of capitulation.