The Boston Tea Party was 252 years ago, December 16, 1773. The Townshend Acts were a series of British acts of Parliament, passed in 1767-1768, that imposed several taxes and regulations upon the British colonies to fund administration of the colonies. The taxes also were intended to pay the enormous debt that the British incurred in the Seven Years War/French and Indian War. The Tea Act of 1773 was an additional tax. A colonial group called the Sons of Liberty saw all these taxes as a violation of their rights. Dressed as Native Americans, members of the group dumped an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company into the harbor: 342 chests altogether. The incident gave additional momentum to the colonial drive toward revolution. The name "Boston Tea Party" didn't appear in print until the 1830s. Later, protesters like Mahatma Gandhi and others invited the 1773 event as a forerunner to social resistance.
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