On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act. This law required American colonists to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Newspapers, legal documents, playing cards, and even dice needed an official stamp to prove the tax had been paid. The British government needed money. It had just fought the expensive French and Indian War to protect the colonies. Parliament believed the colonists should help pay for their own defense. The colonists saw it differently. They had no representatives in Parliament. Nobody from America had voted on this tax. The colonists used the phrase "no taxation without representation" to describe their anger. Protests spread across the colonies. Groups called the Sons of Liberty organized boycotts, refusing to buy British goods. Some tax collectors were threatened and had their offices destroyed. The resistance was so strong that Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766. But the damage was done. The colonists had learned that unified protest could challenge British authority, a lesson they would use again in the years leading up to the American Revolution.