December 16th

On this day – 16^th  December 1773 – The most famous Tea Party 

The Boston Tea Party was a political protest against the "Tea Act of May 10th" the same year. The protest was arranged by the Sons of Liberty, a colonist secret organization who worked to protect what they saw as the rights of the colonists. Some of the protesters were disguised as native Americans when they accessed a docked ship in Boston and threw an the entire shipment of tea overboard. The famous quote "no taxation without representation" was to be associated with this event, because the problem the protesters wanted to adresse was the way the British taxation was forced upon the colonies without their input. The Tea Act which they were protesting was an act to rescue the East India Company, which gave them enormous advantages which others had to pay for through increased prices on tea. Tea parties in other harbors soon followed, but Boston was the first one and thereby they received the hardest reactions afterwards, and also the most fame.

This act of protest and the harsh reaction by the British afterwards escalated into the American Revolution, which eventually led to USA's independence from England. The tea party movement from 2010 is basing its political ideas from this event.