It seems like no time since we — the older generation — celebrated America’s Bicentennial.

The observance of the 200th anniversary of American independence was something of a long-running affair, climaxing during the July 4, 1976, weekend. It was a nationwide birthday party, with proclamations, parades, concerts, battle re-enactments, fireworks and family gatherings for cookouts.

Now, we are on the edge of marking 250 years of U.S. nationhood. Both the conflict itself and the events leading up to it are worth noting.

One key event leading up to the break with Great Britain will be marked Dec. 16: the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

Some background is in order: Colonists in Massachusetts and elsewhere objected to what they considered unfair taxation by the Mother Country. The Parliament had levied a host of taxes on the American colonists to which they had never consented. The Stamp and Townshend acts were widely despised, and the taxes were ultimately repealed — except for the tax on tea, 3 cents per pound.

The Tea Act passed by Parliament retained the tax, and it conferred a monopoly on the British East India Company to sell tea in the colonies. Some Boston colonial leaders, notably Sam Adams and John Hancock, preferred to import — meaning smuggle — tea from Dutch and other sources, thus bypassing the British tax.

So detestable was the British government’s colonial policy that some Americans had enough. Not content simply to avoid buying British tea, a group of patriots known as the Sons of Liberty took their protest a step further.

In what was seemingly more fitting for Halloween than a political statement, members of the Sons of Liberty and their supporters dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded three ships and emptied their cargo into Boston Harbor. In all, 342 chests, or about 90,000 pounds, of tea brought from China — not India — were dumped into the harbor. The value of the tea today would be approximately $1 million.

Often overlooked is that news of the Boston Tea Party spread, and it was replicated elsewhere, notably New York, Philadelphia, Yorktown, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Even though no person was killed or injured in the Boston Tea Party, and there was no damage to property, except for the tea chests and a padlock, the British crackdown on Massachusetts was severe. Besides closing Boston harbor, the British government scrapped the colony’s constitution and courts, moving the administration of justice to England and banning elections. Martial law was in effect.

With the British military buildup to crush the spirit of independence came also a requirement for Americans to provide in their homes living quarters for British troops.

Truly, the shot heard ’round the world was coming.

History — our nation’s story — is not dull stuff in textbooks. Ours is the story of a people who wanted freedom. The story yet to be written is whether we, the heirs of a precious legacy, will preserve it or throw it away.