<human>: Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell

I'm an American, and **I would have to select the [Boston Tea Party] as the embodiment of the American spirit in my mind.

For non-Americans who don't want to click the link, the Boston Tea Party was an act of defiance in which the Sons of Liberty (a group of colonists interested in protecting themselves from what they considered injustice) destroyed a shipment of British East India Company tea by throwing it into the harbor waters beneath the ship it was imported upon.

The Sons were upset because the British government had passed the [Townshend Acts] which, among other things, imposed a tax upon tea exported to the colonies. This taxation was seen as unfair because the colonies were not allowed to elect members to Parliament to represent their interests, but were expected to pay taxes imposed upon them by Parliament's power. They called this [taxation without representation] 

When merchants began importing smuggled tea from the Dutch, the British East India Company amassed a massive surplus of tea in London warehouses. The Tea Act made it possible for them to import their tea cheaper than the smuggled Dutch tea, and in effect charge less money for a better quality tea while still collecting the Townshend Act tea taxes from the unrepresented colonists. 

The Sons of Liberty said "fuck you".
<bot>: On May 10th, 1773 some Americans threw a bunch of tea into the sea to protest taxation without representation. What event do you feel defines your country's spirit?