AUSTIN AND BOSTON

Jane Austin, English novelist. born: December 16, 1775. Steventon, North Berkshire, England.

died  July 18, 1817 (aged 41)  Winchester. OK not a footballer but worth Recognising!              Steventon supports 2 Men’s football teams, one of few North Berks clubs That still do)

The Boston Tea Party

On this day in 1773, a group of men dressed in Mohawk head dresses and cheered by a crowd of thousands, threw cases of tea belonging to the British East India Company into Boston Harbour. Britain's punitive response to the Boston Tea Party, which was a protest against taxes, helped push American colonists closer to War. This political and mercantile protest was a key event that led to the American Revolutionary War and American Independence.

The Boston Tea Party saw the disposal of 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbour. On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of about 60 men, encouraged by a large crowd of Bostonians, wore blankets and Native American headdresses, marched to the wharf, boarded ships belonging to the East India Tea Company, and dumped the tea chests, valued at £18,000 (the equivalent of almost $3 million today), into the water.