May 10: The Parliament of Great Britain approved the Tea Act, a law designed to save the British East Company by letting it to monopolize the tea trade in North America in 1773.

A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies.

The Tea Act or "Tea Act" of 1773 was an act of the British Parliament in order to reduce excess inventories of tea that the British East India Company had accumulated in the warehouses of London and to help the survival of the company.

Colonists protesting against the Townshend Act I 1773.

The East India Company (EIC) arose from the need to market the commodity surpluses including cotton, silk, indigo textiles, salt, potassium nitrate, opium and tea from India, where the British East Company had governed the wishes of the British Empire.

Another objective of the company was to weaken the price of tea smuggled into the British colonies in North America. The Act granted the Company the right to distribute duty free all its products in America, although taxes on the colonies remained intact under previous Townshend laws.

  

The Royal consent was granted on 10 May 1773. Traders of the Thirteen British colonies in North America grew restless towards an American Revolution that three years after American Independence will come through from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.