March 22nd...This Day in History (Now with links to other events)

Stamp Act imposed on American colonies 1765

 

In an effort to raise funds to pay off debts and defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), the British government passes the Stamp Act on this day in 1765. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, from newspapers and pamphlets to playing cards and dice.

Though the Stamp Act employed a strategy that was a common fundraising vehicle in England, it stirred a storm of protest in the colonies. The colonists had recently been hit with three major taxes: the Sugar Act (1764), which levied new duties on imports of textiles, wines, coffee and sugar; the Currency Act (1764), which caused a major decline in the value of the paper money used by colonists; and the Quartering Act (1765), which required colonists to provide food and lodging to British troops.

With the passing of the Stamp Act, the colonists’ grumbling finally became an articulated response to what they saw as the mother country’s attempt to undermine their economic strength and independence. They raised the issue of taxation without representation, and formed societies throughout the colonies to rally against the British government and nobles who sought to exploit the colonies as a source of revenue and raw materials. By October of that year, nine of the 13 colonies sent representatives to the Stamp Act Congress, at which the colonists drafted the “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” a document that railed against the autocratic policies of the mercantilist British empire.

Realizing that it actually cost more to enforce the Stamp Act in the protesting colonies than it did to abolish it, the British government repealed the tax the following year. The fracas over the Stamp Act, though, helped plant seeds for a far larger movement against the British government and the eventual battle for independence. Most important of these was the formation of the Sons of Liberty–a group of tradesmen who led anti-British protests in Boston and other seaboard cities–and other groups of wealthy landowners who came together from the across the colonies. Well after the Stamp Act was repealed, these societies continued to meet in opposition to what they saw as the abusive policies of the British empire. Out of their meetings, a growing nationalism emerged that would culminate in the fighting of the American Revolution only a decade later.

 (More Events on This Day in History)

• American Revolution

• 1765 British pass Stamp Act

• Automotive

• 1983 The origins of the Hummer

• Civil War

• 1817 Braxton Bragg born

• Cold War

• 1947 Truman orders loyalty checks of federal employees

• Crime

• 1984 Teachers are indicted at the McMartin Preschool

• Disaster

• 1859 Earthquake destroys landmarks in Quito, Ecuador
• 2014 Mudslide in Washington state kills more than 40 people

• General Interest

• 1820 Naval hero killed in duel
• 1945 Arab League formed
• 1972 Equal Rights Amendment passed by Congress

• Hollywood

• 2007 News Corporation and NBC announce new Web deal

• Literary

• 1947 Prolific, best-selling author James Patterson is born

• Music

• 1930 Stephen Sondheim is born

• Old West

• 1908 Louis L’Amour born

• Presidential

• 1933 FDR legalizes sale of beer and wine

• Sports

• 1894 First Stanley Cup championship played

• Vietnam War

• 1965 Officials confirm “non-lethal gas” was provided
• 1968 Westmoreland to depart South Vietnam

• World War I

• 1915 Russians take Austrian garrison at Przemysl

• World War II

• 1942 Cripps and Gandhi meet