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Before 1763, people in America (which shall henceforth be known as the US, for Un-united States because they weren’t united yet) had no coordination. This lack of coordination led the Americans to be rather bad at DDR, so there was much slipping and falling and breaking of bones and/or organs. To rectify this problem, governments began to evolve. Each colony had a governor, and there was an appointed upper house and an elected lower house. The courts, however, were all “We don’t give an at’s rass about your laws! We’ll do whatever we want!”

Meanwhile, the King of England had a council who resided in a privy. It probably wasn’t a very pleasant way to live.

So then some people in Europe (who might have been the French) came up with a brilliant idea: sliced bread!! And life was great until they came up with an even better idea: mercantilism! Then those English plagiarists stole the idea from the French and the French were all like, “Quoi??” …I find it kinda interesting that spell check actually recognizes “quoi” on my computer. Anyway, England was all, “RAWR GIVE US YOUR RAW MATERIALS AND WE WILL CREATE THINGS OUT OF THEM!” And they came up with the Navigation Acts, which limited American economics with tariffs and whatnot, and making all ships pass through British ports so they could make other people pay them taxes. And then the French were angry and declared, “Angleterre! Nous ne stand pas pour votre attempt to gain control des colonies!” (Ignore the random English words and crappy grammar, please.)

Then in 1754, the French and Indian war stated cuz some Americans wandered into French territory in Ohio, and the French were like, “Va t’an!” And so they fought a bit and George Washington led an attack against Fort Duquesne. He lost. Maybe he’s not so perfect after all. But William Pitt tried again and won. Then in 1763 there was a Treaty of Paris stating that England had control over the New World. So the English tighter control over America with the Proclamation of 1763, which said stuff like “You shall not purchase Indian candy or cross the Appalachians or eat soggy waffles.” The Americans were rather upset at the loss of their soggy waffles, but the final straw came when the British started taxing stuff like sugar and coffee and marmosets and tea. That was called the Sugar Act of 1764. And the colonists refused to pay because it was taxation without representation. So they marched up and down the streets chanting “Taxation without representation!” Catchy, isn’t it?

But the colonists were still not united, even though they denounced the British use of holograms to represent themselves to their people (what is known as virtual representation). The Americans used actual representation, which they claimed was better but this was only because they didn’t have the technology to make holograms yet. Silly Americans. Then the Brits passed the Declaratory Act, which pretty much said, “Whatever we say, goes. Because we said so.” There’s some sort of circular logic in this….

And then Parliament passed some more acts. They taxed stuff. Americans were like, “Freaking son of a buffalo! Don’t you wankers have anything better to do??” And the British were like, “No.” And then the Americans were like, “Hey, let’s have a snowball fight in Boston!” and they chucked some snowballs at the British, who freaked out and thought the sky was falling and shot some people. It is now known as the Boston Massacre. And the Americans were angry and burned a British boat.

Meanwhile, pirates attacked ships. In the Caribbean. So the East India Trade Company’s business wasn’t doing so well. The Brits thought maybe they should help it and sent over a bunch of tea to the Americans. Kinda like a gift, except the Americans had to pay for it. But when it arrived in Boston, the Americans were like, “What are you playing at? This is Earl Grey tea! We demand Darjeeling!” Because everyone knows that Asians make the best tea. And the Brits were like, “Good heavens! Look what they’ve done to our tea!”

So the Brits were angry and passed some Coercive Acts, which were rather intolerable. And Americans said, “YOU DID NOT BRING OUR TEA. PREPARE TO BE ELIMINATED.” And they held a Continental Congress where no one could agree with each other.