The Tea Parties held Wednesday take their name from the famed Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor as a protest against a British law passed earlier that year and, more generally, as a tax protest.

The target was the Tea Act, which aimed to help out the financially ailing English East India Trading Company. The law imposed no new tax and actually stood to lower the cost of tea to Americans. But it did so by reducing costs for the Trading Company, which allowed the firm to undersell competitors, including smugglers. Furthermore, although the law added no new tax, it left in place a levy on tea that was a very sore spot for colonists.

When three ships carrying tea arrived in Boston harbor in late 1773, residents wouldn't allow them to unload. British officials wouldn't allow the ships to leave without unloading. On Dec. 16, as a legal deadline for a resolution loomed, a band of colonists, some dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded the ships and dumped all their tea cargo into the harbor. That was 342 chests of tea.

Accounts vary on the number of people involved -- some say 50, for example, others indicate more than 100 -- but the three-hour event had a significant impact. The following year, Britain responded with the so-called "Intolerable Acts," and the Tea Party stands as an important milestone in the run-up to the American Revolution.

JIM KERN