Boston is chock full of history! One of the nice things about visiting the city is that they have a path called the Freedom Trail, where tourists can follow a red path to all of the historical sites in Boston and Cambridge. The one that interested me the most was the story of the Boston Massacre - mainly because it sounds like a good story and it costs about $17 to hear it! So, I took the frugal option and decided to look it up here. Today's question is: what was the Boston Massacre and how many people died?A: The Boston Massacre took place on March 5, 1770 during a clash between the British and American colonists. In the late 1760's tensions were beginning to arise around the growing British presence and the enforcement of the Townshend Acts - a law created to increase revenue by increasing duties on common imports instead of taxing income. The Townshend Acts were extremely unpopular amongst colonialists and gave way to a number of protests. On the evening of March 5, a boisterous gang began to form outside of the Custom House and British troops fired into the crowd, killing three civilians and wounding 11 others. A total of five men died from the incident. The British captain, Thomas Preston, and his men were tried for murder; Preston and six of his men were acquitted, while two others were found guilty of manslaughter, punished, and discharged from the army.
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