The presence of British troops in colonial Boston had long been a point of contention within the city. On the night of March 5, 1770, a mob of local men and boys taunted a British sentry standing guard at Boston’s customs house. When other soldiers came to the sentry’s aid, a skirmish ensued and shots were fired into the angry crowd. Businessman-turned-politician Samuel Adams recognized the power of this conflict as a political tool to whip up anti-British sentiment among the colonists, and urged silversmith-patriot Paul Revere to prepare an engraving of the scene for publication in the Boston Gazette. The event would come to be recognized as one of the major incidents leading up to the Revolutionary War—the Boston Massacre.