On December 16, 1773, 30-130 members of the Sons of Liberty dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The tea had come from England and had cost a lot of money. The members were thinly dressed as Mohawk Indians and did this as a protest because they felt that had little constitutional rights.
The reaction to this was predictably furious. Britian passed the Coercive Acts which was a group of "Intolerable" laws that made colonists feel like slaves. Also, Britain close Boston Harbor effectively preventing anything coming in or going out of Boston overseas.
Ben Franklin insisted that all 90,000 pounds of tea had to be paid for. A New York merchant, Robert Murray, offered to pay for the losses but was refused. Many other similar acts were performed as a result of this, including the burning of an important naval vessel.
Ultimately this was one of the biggest contributing factors to the Revolutionary War. Not just the Act itself, but what was formed as a result of this, the Intolerable Acts. Many people in America were very reluctant to give credit to the members of the Sons of Liberty until the 1830's when they realized how important it was in the American Revolution.
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