Members of American colonial society argued the position of "no taxation without representation", starting with the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. They rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them because they lacked members in that governing body. Protests steadily escalated to the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the burning of the Gaspee in Rhode Island in 1772, followed by the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, during which Patriots destroyed a consignment of taxed tea.
Maps of Revolutionary War battles that were fought in the Middle Atlantic ... and the strategic importance of this pass was at once recognized by the British.
The Industrial Revolution led Europeans to have better military weapons and this allowed small European armies to defeat larger African and Asian forcer when invading territory. This made possible the colonization of the African continent.
