The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which the Thirteen American Colonies broke from the British Empire and formed an independent nation, the United States of America. The American Revolution was the result of a series of social, political, and intellectual transformations in American society, government and ways of thinking. Starting in 1765 the Americans rejected the authority of Parliament to tax them without elected representation; protests continued to escalate, as in the Boston Tea Party of 1773, and the British imposed punitive laws-the Intolerable Acts-on Massachusetts in 1774. In 1774 the Patriots suppressed the Loyalists and expelled all royal officials. Each colony now had a new government that took control. The British responded by sending combat troops to re-establish royal control. Through the Second Continental Congress, the Patriots fought the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783).