1. Spain
   France
2. Great Britian

The American Revolution was primarily a war between Great Britain and the 13 colonies that the country had established in North America. The colonies wanted independence from the mother land, while Great Britain wanted to hold onto its "assets."

1. stamps
   soldiers
2. tea

To protest tea taxes, colonists dressed themselves up as Native Americans and dumped an entire shipment of tea from the East India Company into Boston Harbor. The event took place on December 16, 1773.

1. Sam Adams
   Paul Revere
2. Thomas Jefferson

After learning that British soldiers were marching toward Lexington and Concord, silversmith Paul Revere took a midnight ride to warn colonists of the danger. Contrary to myth, he never told anyone that the British were coming, because he and the other colonists also considered themselves to be British at the time. He also didn't make the ride alone, and was one of several brave men to take up the call.

1. slave ownership rules
   lack of representation in Parliament
2. lack of wartime protections from Britain

Great Britain was pretty tax-happy with its new colonies in North America, jacking up taxes with the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Tea Act of 1773. The colonists weren't thrilled about the taxes, of course, but they were most frustrated by the lack of representation in Parliament for the colonies.

1. red
   blue
2. gray

The whole "Redcoats" nickname came from the red uniforms that the British soldiers wore with their white breeches. The colonists wore a hodgepodge of uniforms, though the official uniform of the Continental Army was eventually navy and white.

1. Providence
   Boston
2. Washington DC

Tensions mounted between the British government and the colonists throughout the 1760s and 1770s. In 1770, the first serious violent incident in what would become the American Revolution took place in Boston. Now known as the Boston Massacre, the event started when British soldiers slaughtered five colonists, including Attucks. The soldiers were arrested, but later acquitted.

1. civil rights and an end to Parliamentary abuses
   the right to expand the slave trade
2. independence from Great Britain

When the colonists met for the First Continental Congress in September 1774, they weren't yet looking for independence. Instead, they were looking for a guarantee of basic rights and an end to abusive acts by the British Parliament.

1. Massachusetts
   Maryland
2. New Hampshire

The British were pretty unhappy after the Boston Tea Party incident, and took steps to punish colonists in Massachusetts. This resulted in the very first battles of the Revolutionary War being fought in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord.

1. to kill colonists
   to collect taxes
2. to take weapons away from colonists

The British government was not happy with the colonies after events like the Boston Tea Party and other protests. To help quell a potential uprising, British soldiers were sent to Massachusetts in April 1775 to collect weapons from colonists. Instead, colonial militias fought back, driving away more than 700 British soldiers at the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

1. established a Continental Army
   signed the Declaration of Independence
2. declared war on Great Britain

The Second Continental Congress met in 1775. They immediately established a Continental Army, led by none other than George Washington. They also extended an olive branch of peace to Great Britain, still hoping to avoid a war.

1. Saratoga
   Bunker Hill
2. Ticonderoga

The Battle of Bunker Hill actually took place on Breed's Hill in Massachusetts on June 17, 1775. While the British won the battle, the colonists took down a surprisingly large number of British soldiers.

1. Declaration of Independence was written
   Great Britain recognized the U.S. as an independent nation
2. Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776 is celebrated as America's Independence Day. On that date, Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence. It wasn't signed until weeks later, however.

1. King George III
   Queen Elizabeth
2. King Henry VIII

King George III was the English monarch who had the dubious honor of ruling the nation during the American Revolution.

1. Mississippi
   Potomac
2. Delaware

Washington and his troops famously crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey on Christmas night 1776. He and his men surprised British troops at Trenton on December 26th.

1. the British surrendered
   the colonists surrendered
2. they were a stalemate

The British and colonists fought two major battles at Saratoga in New York in the autumn of 1777. It was a major victory for the colonists because British General John Burgoyne discovered he was surrounded and decided to surrender.

1. It ended the war.
   It encouraged France to help the colonists.
2. It scared the British into withdrawing their troops from the colonies.

Throughout the entire American Revolution, France had secretly been helping the colonists by supplying them with weapons. After the decisive colonial victory at Saratoga, the French openly joined the war in support of the colonists.

1. Naval Academy
   White House
2. West Point

Benedict Arnold was a general for the American Continental Army when he switched his loyalties. He planned to surrender West Point to the British, but was discovered before he could do the dirty deed. He later became a general in the British Army.

1. Charleston
   New York
2. Annapolis

The biggest defeat for the colonists took place on May 12, 1780 as the British took the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Meanwhile, the two sides continued to engage in a stalemate in the northern states.

1. Atlanta
   Yorktown
2. Dover

British Lord Charles Cornwallis surrendered to the colonists at Yorktown, VA on October 19, 1781 -- effectively ending the war.

1. The British crown recognized American independence.
   The Americans offered to remain a colony.
2. nothing

The British surrender at Yorktown ended the American Revolution ... sort of. While the fighting was over, nothing much happened for two full years. In fact, the British kept troops stationed in both Charleston and Savannah during that time.

1. Treaty of Boston
   Treaty of London
2. Treaty of Paris

Great Britain recognized America as an independent nation in the Treaty of Paris, which was signed on September 3, 1783.

1. America's
   Britain's
2. total neutrality

Spain informally fought on the side of the colonists at the start of the the war. On June 21, 1779, Spain officially declared war on Britain.

1. Germany
   Spain
2. France

The British hired German soldiers, dubbed the Hessians, to fight against the colonists during the war. Eventually, one-fourth of the British Army fighting against the colonists was made up of Hessians.

1. Massachusetts
   New York
2. Georgia

The British fort at Ticonderoga in New York served as a strategic point thanks to its access to the Hudson River and the Canadian border. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold teamed up to take the fort on May 10, 1775.

1. only if they were slaves
   no
2. yes

Black soldiers made up around 5 percent of the entire Continental Army, which was officially around 100,000 strong. At least twice that many men of all colors fought in the colonial war effort in you count minutemen and militias.

1. British
   American
2. They avoided the war completely.

Most Native Americans took the side of the British in the war, hoping that if the British won, it would slow the spread and settlement of colonists. Some coastal Native Americans who interacted frequently with the colonists did fight alongside the colonists, however.

1. 680
   6,800
2. 68,000

Around 6,800 Americans died fighting in the war. Another 22,000 were taken prisoner. The British lost around 24,000 men.

1. 250,000
   1 milliom
2. 2.5 million

In 1775, Great Britain was home to 8 million people. Two and a half million colonists lived in America at the time -- including half a million slaves.

1. 5,000
   25,000
2. 250,0000

The British had around 25,000 loyalists -- colonists who were loyal to the British crown and fought against the colonists. They also sent around 22,000 British soldiers to the colonies to fight, plus thousands of Hessians.

1. Ticonderoga
   Baltimore
2. Long Island

Around 40,000 people fought in the Battle of Long Island, making it the largest battle in the war. This is followed by the Battles of Brandywine and Yorktown, with 30,000 and 27,000 people, respectively.