The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775 on Breed's Hill, as part of the Siege of Boston during the American Revolutionary War. General Israel Putnam was in charge of the revolutionary forces, while Major-General William Howe commanded the British forces. Because most of the fighting did not occur on Bunker Hill itself, the conflict is sometimes more accurately (though more rarely) called the Battle of Breed's Hill.

The result was a Pyrrhic victory for the British. They suffered their greatest losses of the entire war: over 800 wounded and 228 killed. The colonists held on and repelled the first two attacks. Finally the colonists' ammunition supplies ran out and on their third assault, the British forces overran the revolutionaries' fortified earthworks on Breed's and Bunker's Hills. Afterwards, British General Henry Clinton remarked in his diary that "A few more such victories would have surely put an end to British dominion in America."

Howe's immediate objective was achieved, but did not affect the siege; it did, however, demonstrate that the American Colonists were willing to stand up to a pitched battle. (Among historians, it is debated whether General Putnam, his second-in-command, Colonel William Prescott, or someone else gave the order, "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!")