In this segment, Les Sinclair talks with historian Rick Britton about TODAY IN U.S. HISTORY: This night—a snowy night, 251 years ago, it was March 5, 1770—a mob of American colonists gathered at the Boston city Customs House and began taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, calling themselves Patriots, were angry over the occupation of their city by British troops who’d been sent in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament. (And of course, Americans had no representation in Parliament.)

The British commanding officer, Captain Thomas Preston, ordered more men to fix bayonets and join the guard outside the building. The Patriots responded by throwing snowballs at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was hit, leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying—Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell. Three more were injured. Although it is unclear whether Crispus Attucks, an African American, was the first to fall as is commonly believed, the deaths of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the American Revolution.

The British soldiers were put on trial, and Josiah Quincy and future president John Adams agreed to defend the soldiers. When the trial ended in December of that year, two British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded with an “M” for murder.

The Sons of Liberty, a Patriot group formed earlier, advertised the “Boston Massacre” as a battle for American liberty. Patriot Paul Revere made a provocative engraving of the incident, depicting the British soldiers lining up like an organized army to suppress an idealized representation of the protest. Copies of the engraving were distributed throughout the colonies and helped reinforce negative American sentiments about British rule.