Samuel Adams in the context of "Sons of Liberty"

The Boston Massacre, known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street, was a confrontation, on March 5, 1770, during the American Revolution in Boston in what was then the colonial-era Province of Massachusetts Bay.

In the confrontation, nine British soldiers shot several in a crowd, estimated between 300 and 400, who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. The event was subsequently described as "a massacre" by Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and other leading Patriots who later became central proponents of independence during the American Revolution and Revolutionary War. British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 in order to support Crown-appointed officials and to enforce unpopular legislation implemented by the British Parliament.

Paul Revere's midnight ride was an alert given to minutemen in the Province of Massachusetts Bay by local Patriots on the night of April 18, 1775, warning them of the approach of British Army troops prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord. In the preceding weeks, Patriots in the region learned of a planned crackdown on the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then based in Concord, by the British occupational authorities in the colony.

Sons of Liberty members Paul Revere and William Dawes prepared the alert, which began when Robert Newman, the sexton of Boston's Old North Church, used a lantern signal to warn colonists in Charlestown of the British Army's advance by way of the Charles River. Revere and Dawes then rode to meet John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington, ten miles (16 km) away, alerting up to 40 other Patriot riders along the way. Revere and Dawes then headed towards Concord with Samuel Prescott.

John Hancock (January 23, 1737 [O.S. January 12, 1736] – October 8, 1793) was an American Founding Father, merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. He was the longest-serving president of the Continental Congress, having served as the second president of the Second Continental Congress and the seventh president of the Congress of the Confederation. He was the first and third governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. His large and stylish signature on the United States Declaration of Independence led to John Hancock or Hancock becoming a colloquialism for a person's signature. He also signed the Articles of Confederation, and used his influence to ensure that Massachusetts ratified the United States Constitution in 1788.

Before the American Revolution, Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, having inherited a profitable mercantile business from his uncle. He began his political career in Boston as a protégé of Samuel Adams, an influential local politician, though the two men later became estranged. Hancock used his wealth to support the colonial cause as tensions increased between colonists and Great Britain in the 1760s. He became very popular in Massachusetts, especially after Boston customs officials seized his sloop Liberty in 1768 and charged him with smuggling. Those charges were eventually dropped; he has often been described as a smuggler in historical accounts, but the accuracy of this characterization has been questioned.

Joseph Warren (June 11, 1741 – June 17, 1775), a Founding Father of the United States, was an American physician who was one of the most important figures in the Patriot movement in Boston during the early days of the American Revolution, eventually serving as President of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Warren drafted the 1774 Suffolk Resolves, was active in the Sons of Liberty, and enlisted Paul Revere and William Dawes on April 18, 1775, to leave Boston and spread the alarm that the British garrison in Boston was setting out to raid the town of Concord and arrest rebel leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams.

Warren had been commissioned a major general in the colony's militia shortly before the June 17, 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. Rather than exercise his rank, Warren chose to participate in the battle as a private soldier, and was killed in combat when British troops stormed the redoubt atop Breed's Hill. His death, immortalized in John Trumbull's painting, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775, galvanized the rebel forces. Warren has been memorialized in the naming of many towns, counties, streets, and other locations in the United States, by statues, and in numerous other ways.

Henry Adams (January 21, 1583 – October 6, 1646) was an English colonial farmer. Also known as Henry Adams of Braintree, he was a patrilineal emigrant ancestor of U.S. Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, great-great-grandfather of U.S. Founding Father Samuel Adams, and 9th great-grandfather of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge.