June 14, 1974

June 14, 1974 The first of three major Bicentennial exhibitions, “In the Minds and Hearts of the People—Prologue to the American Revolution 1760-1774,” opens at the National Portrait Gallery, where it will remain on display through Nov.17. It includes an actual tea chest thrown overboard during the Boston Tea Party that was discovered in in Texas only five days prior to the opening of the exhibition.

Image: This engraving by William Hogarth was featured in the “In the Minds and Hearts of the People&rdquo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It is meant to defend King George III and the ministry of the Earl of Bute. A fire, symbolic of war, has broken out in the background buildings. William Hogarth was an English painter and printmaker who poignantly commented on the English society of the 18theighteenth century with biting satire.

Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives