Boston, Massachusetts, USA (East, North, South) (Allston) (Readville) (Roslindale)
1770 - March 5 - Boston Massacre

Tensions between the American colonists and the British were already running high in the early spring of 1770. Late in the afternoon, on March 5, a crowd of jeering Bostonians slinging snowballs gathered around a small group of British soldiers guarding the Boston Customs House. The soldiers became enraged after one of them had been hit, and they fired into the crowd, even though they were under orders not to fire. Five colonists were shot and killed.

The first person who was hit when the British soldiers began firing was an African American sailor named Crispus Attucks... Of the five civilians who died in the Boston Massacre, Attucks is the only one who became widely known, and he became the first hero of the American Revolution.

www.americaslibrary.gov

March 5, 1770

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