Timeline Massachusetts
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The name derives from two Indian words, "massa"
meaning great, and
"wachusett" meaning mountain place. It is believed this is a reference
to the Great Blue Hill.
(www.bostonhistory.org/faq.html)
Massachusetts was the first American colony to
legalize slavery.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Z1 p.5)
Nantucket is a 3 by 14 miles island 30 miles from the coast
of Cape Cod.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T5)
1588
Feb 12, John Winthrop, English attorney, puritan,
1st gov of Massachusetts Bay Colony, was born.
(HN, 1/12/99)(MC, 2/12/02)
1589 Mar 19, William Bradford,
governor of Plymouth colony for 30 years, was born (baptized).
(HN, 3/19/98)(MC, 3/19/02)
1591 Jul 20, Anne Hutchinson,
religious liberal who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
for her views, was born.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1602 May 15, Bartholomew Gosnold,
English navigator, discovered Cape Cod.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/98)
1602 May 21, Martha's Vineyard was
first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1602 Bartholomew Gosnold camped
for a few months in a party of 24 gentlemen and 8 sailors on Cuttyhunk
Island, Mass.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1604-1690 Reverend John Eliot was an English
missionary in Massachusetts called the "Apostle to the Indians." The
Puritan Eliot learned the Algonquian language and preached to the
Indians. He translated the Bible into Algonquian and published it in
1663 in Cambridge, Mass.
(HNQ, 6/7/98)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)
1607 Nov 26, This day is believed
to be the birth date of London-born clergyman John Harvard, the
principal benefactor of the original Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 11/26/07)
1616-1619 An epidemic, possibly viral hepatitis from
contact with Europeans, ravaged the Wampanoag confederacy in
Massachusetts. This helped to make possible the Pilgrim settlement in
1620.
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.49)
1617 The Pilgrims decided to leave
the Netherlands. They formed a partnership in a joint-stock company
with a group of London merchants in a company called John Pierce &
Assoc. They received a grant for a plantation in the Virginia colony
but ended up landing in Massachusetts. Each adult was to receive a
share in the company but earnings would not be divided for 7 years.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A14)
1619 In England Tisquantum joined
a new exploratory mission to the New England coast and returned to find
that his tribe had been wiped out by the plague. It was he who later
communicated with the first Pilgrims at Plymouth.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.29)
1620 Sep 16, The Pilgrims sailed
from England on the Mayflower, finally settling at Plymouth, Mass. The
Pilgrims were actually Separatists because they had left the Church of
England. The 4 children of William Brewster, who arrived on the
Mayflower, were named: Love, Wrestling, Patience, and Fear. In 2006
Nathaniel Philbrick authored “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community
and War.”
(HN, 9/16/98)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)(SFC, 3/20/99,
p.B4)(SFC, 7/26/06, p.E2)
1620 Nov 11, (OC) Pilgrims aboard
the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed a compact calling for
a "body politick." 102 Pilgrims stepped ashore. 41 men signed the
compact calling themselves Saints and others Strangers. One passenger
died enroute and 2 were born during the passage. Their military
commander was Miles Standish. In 1945 George Willison authored "Saints
and Strangers." In 2006 Nathaniel Philbrick authored “Mayflower: A
Story of Courage, Community and War.”
(AP, 11/11/97)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.8,23)(AM, 11/00,
p.17)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.82)
1620 Nov 19, The Pilgrims reached
Cape Cod.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1620 Nov 20, Peregrine White was
born aboard the Mayflower in Massachusetts Bay -- the first child born
of English parents in present-day New England.
(AP, 11/20/97)
1620 Nov 21, (NC) Leaders of the
Mayflower expedition framed the "Mayflower Compact," designed to
bolster unity among the settlers. The Pilgrims reached Provincetown
Harbor, Mass.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1620 Dec 6, A group of passengers
and crew left the Mayflower in a shallop to search for a suitable
harbor and place to settle.
(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1620 Dec 11, 103 Mayflower
pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1620 Dec 16, The Mayflower dropped
anchor in Plymouth Harbor.
(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1620 Dec 18, The Captain of the
Mayflower 1st went on land at Plymouth Harbor with 3 to 4 sailors.
(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1620 Dec 21, The Mayflower reached
Plymouth, Mass. after a 63-day voyage. Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower
went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass. The crew
of the ship did not have enough beer to get to Virginia and back to
England so they dropped the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to preserve their
beer stock.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 12/20/97)(Hem., 8/96,
p.115)(MC, 12/21/01)
1620 "The chronicle of the
Pilgrims voyage to and settlement in America was begun by Nathanial
Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account
of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof..." From the two
editorials titled: "The Desolate Wilderness" and "And the Fair Land,"
published annually in the WSJ since 1961.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-10)
Captain Edward Bangs, a member of
the Plymouth Colony, founded the town of Brewster.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.A27)
1620 The Wampanoag Confederacy of
some 50 Algonquin bands stretched across southeastern Massachusetts.
(AH, 6/02, p.44)
1621 Feb 17, Miles Standish was
appointed 1st commander of Plymouth colony.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1621 Mar 16 The first Indian
appeared in Plymouth, Mass. Samoset, and his friend Tisquantum
(Squanto), an English speaking Indian of the Wampanoag tribe, became
friends with the Pilgrims.
(HN, 3/16/98)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1621 Apr 1, The Plymouth,
Massachusetts colonists created the first treaty with Native Americans.
(OTD)
1621 Apr 5, The Mayflower sailed
from Plymouth, Mass., on a return trip to England. By this time 44 of
the landing party had died and 54 people, mostly children, were left to
build the colony.
(AP, 4/5/97)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1621 Oct 25, Gov. Bradford of US
Plymouth colony disallowed sport on Christmas Day.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1621 Oct, The first American
Thanksgiving was held in Massachusetts' Plymouth colony in 1621 to give
thanks for a bountiful harvest. 51 Pilgrims served codfish, sea bass
and turkeys while their 90 Wampanoag guests contributed venison to the
feast. After the survival of their first colony through a bitter winter
and the subsequent gathering of the harvest in the autumn, Plymouth
Colony Governor William Bradford issued a thanksgiving proclamation.
During the three-day October thanksgiving the Pilgrims feasted on wild
turkey and venison with their Native American guests. American Indians
introduced cranberries to the white settlers. In 2006 Godfrey Hodgson,
British historian, authored “A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims
and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving.” American scholars quickly
defied Hodgson’s allegation that there were no turkeys in the region.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.122)(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.M1)(SFC,
11/22/06, p.A1)
1621 Dec 25, The governor William
Bradford of New Plymouth prevented newcomers from playing cards. The
queens later depicted on playing cards were said to be: spades
(Pallas), hearts (Judith), diamonds (Rachel), clubs (Elizabeth).
(HN, 12/25/98)(SFC, 3/20/99, p.B4)(MC, 12/25/01)
1622 William Bradford and Edward
Winslow authored “Mourt’s Relation.” It was published in London and
provided an account of the Plymouth colony’s first year.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1623 Sep 10, Lumber and furs were
the first cargo to leave New Plymouth in North America for England.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1623 Gov. William Bradford
instituted private property so that the pilgrims could cultivate food
at a profit. He assigned every family a parcel of land.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A12)
1625 An English colonizing group
founded the Mount Wollaston settlement, 25 miles north of Plymouth. It
later became Quincy, Mass. Thomas Morton, a London lawyer, was part of
the group.
(ON, 3/00, p.11)
1626 Nov 15, The Pilgrim Fathers,
who settled in New Plymouth, bought out their London investors.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1627 James Morton changed the name
of the Mount Wollaston settlement to Merrymount and organized a trading
company to compete with Plymouth for the Indian trade in beaver pelts.
(ON, 3/00, p.11)
1628 Mar 19, Massachusetts colony
was founded by Englishmen.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1628 May 1, A May festival in
Quincy, Mass., degenerated into an orgy with Indian women.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1628 Jun 9, Thomas Morton of Mass.
became the 1st person deported from what is now US.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1628 Sep 8, John Endecott
(1588-1665) arrived with colonists at Salem, Massachusetts, where he
would become the governor.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1629 Mar 14, A Royal charter was
granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company. About 1,000 puritans under
the leadership of John Winthrop received a charter from King Charles to
trade and colonize between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The
official seal to the document was reported found in 1997. [see 1684]
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A21)(HN, 3/14/98)(HNQ, 11/23/00)
1629 Apr 30, John Endecott became
governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
(http://38.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EN/ENDECOTT_JOHN.htm)
1630 Feb 22, Indians introduced
pilgrims to popcorn at Thanksgiving.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1630 Mar 22, The first American
legislation prohibiting gambling was enacted in Boston.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1630 May 29, Gov. John Winthrop
began his "History of New England."
(SC, 5/29/02)
1630 Jun 12, John Winthrop aboard
the Isabella, landed at North River near Salem and took over as
governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop eventually decided
to locate the colony in Charlestown because of its proximity to the
harbor.
(www.bostonhistory.org/faq.html)
1630 Jun 25, The fork was
introduced to American dining by Gov. Winthrop.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1630 Sep 7, The Massachusetts town
of Trimontaine (Shawmut), was renamed Boston, and became the state
capital. It was named after a town of the same name in Lincolnshire,
England.
(HN, 9/7/98)(www.bostonhistory.org/faq.html)
1630 Sep 30, John Billington, one
of the original pilgrims who sailed to the New World on the Mayflower,
became the first criminal in the American colonies to be executed for
murder. He was hanged for having shot John Newcomin following a quarrel.
(HN, 9/30/01)(MC, 9/30/01)
1630 Oct 19, In Boston the 1st
general court was held.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1630 John Winthrop gave a speech
to his fellow Puritans aboard the ship Arabella: "For we must consider
that we shall be as a City on the Hill."
(WSJ, 5/7/01, p.A20)
1630 The Boston Common was first
used by the Pilgrims as a common grazing ground for their livestock. It
remained open to livestock until 1830.
(AH, 10/07, p.72)
1631 Feb 5, A ship from Bristol,
the Lyon, arrived with provisions for the Massachusetts Bay Colony
(Massachusetts Bay Company). Puritan Roger Williams, proponent of
religious freedom and later founder of Rhode Island, arrived with his
wife in Boston from England and joined the Separatist colony at
Plymouth.
(http://tinyurl.com/m6czns)(AP, 2/5/97)(WSJ,
6/21/05, p.D10)(AH, 4/07, p.25)
1631 May 18, English colony of
Massachusetts Bay granted Puritans voting rights and John Winthrop was
elected 1st governor of Massachusetts.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1631 The General Court of
Massachusetts gave voting rights only to Puritan church members.
(AH, 4/07, p.30)
1633-1635 Roger Williams (d.1683), minister, moved to
Salem and engaged in an ongoing dispute with Boston minister John
Cotton.
(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.D10)
1634 Mar 4, Samuel Cole opened the
first tavern in Boston, Massachusetts.
(HN, 3/4/99)
1634 May 31, Massachusetts Bay
colony annexed the Maine colony.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1634 Sep 18, Anne Hutchinson, the
first female religious leader in American colonies, arrived at the
Massachusetts Bay Colony with her family. She preached that faith alone
was sufficient for salvation. As her following grew, she was brought to
trial and found guilty of heresy against Puritan orthodoxy and banished
from Massachusetts. She left with 70 followers to Providence, Rhode
Island, Roger Williams's colony based on religious freedom.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1634 Gov. John Winthrop of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony estimated the local population rather counting
it directly.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.97)
1635 Feb 13, In Massachusetts the
oldest public school in the United States, the Boston Public Latin
School, was founded.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 2/13/98)
1635 Oct 9, Religious dissident
Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Mass.
Bay Company). He became a founder of Rhode Island. Enforcement was
delayed until the following January due to illness.
(AP, 10/9/01)(AH, 4/07, p.26)
1636 Jul 20, John Oldham, trader
in Mass., was murdered by Indians.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1636 Sep 8, Harvard College, the
first college in America, was founded as Cambridge College. It changed
its name two years later in honor of the Reverend John Harvard, who
gave the institution three hundred books and a large sum of money for
the day. [see Oct 28]
(MC, 9/8/01)
1636 Oct 4, The Massachusetts
Plymouth Company drafted its 1st law.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1636 Oct 28, The General Court of
Massachusetts passed a legislative act establishing Harvard College in
Cambridge, Mass. It was the first corporation in the US. Harvard Univ.
was named after John Harvard who bequeathed books to the Univ. that
included “The Christian Warfare Against the Devil World and Flesh” by
John Downame. Englishman George Downing was the first graduate.
London’s Downing St. was named after him. [see Sep 8]
(SFEC, 6/28/98, Z1 p.8)(HN, 10/28/98)(SFEC, 12/6/98,
Z1p.10)(AP, 10/28/07)
1636 The first militia units in
the Massachusetts Bay Colony were formed.
(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A11)
1637 Jul 23, King Charles of
England handed over the American colony of Massachusetts to Sir
Fernando Gorges, one of the founders of the Council of New England.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1637 Nov 7-1637 Nov 8, Anne
Hutchinson (b.1591) and her followers were tried as heretics and
banished from the Mass Bay colony to Rhode Island.
(http://law.jrank.org/pages/2329/Anne-Hutchinson-Trials-1637-1638.html)(WSJ,
11/25/08, p.A13)
1637 James Morton published "New
English Canaan," a satiric book describing his encounters with the New
England Pilgrims.
(ON, 3/00, p.12)
1637 The Archbishop of Canterbury
launched an effort to revoke the charter of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, but the boat carrying the English authorities sank on its way.
This period in Pilgrim and Puritan history was covered by Sarah Vowell
in “The Wordy Shipmates” (2008).
(WSJ, 11/25/08, p.A13)
1638 Jun 1, The first earthquake
was recorded in the U.S. at Plymouth, Mass.
(DT internet 6/1/97)
1638 John Harvard, a Puritan
minister, bequeathed his 260-volume library to Harvard College.
(SFCM, 12/10/00, p.11)
1639 Mar 13, Cambridge College was
re-named Harvard University for clergyman John Harvard.
(AP, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)
1639 May 20, Dorchester, Mass.,
formed the 1st school funded by local taxes.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1639 Jun 6, Massachusetts granted
500 acres of land to erect a gunpowder mill.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1639 Nov 5, 1st post office in the
colonies opened in Massachusetts.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1640 Dec 9, Settler Hugh Bewitt
was banished from the Massachusetts colony when he declared himself to
be free of original sin.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1640 The Massachusetts Bay Company
sent 300,000 codfish to market.
(SFC, 5/24/97, p.E3)
1641 Dec 1, Massachusetts became
the 1st colony to give statutory recognition to slavery. It was
followed by Connecticut in 1650 and Virginia in 1661.
(MC, 12/1/01)(HNQ, 5/20/02)
1641 Puritans wrote a statute that
enjoined husband from beating their wives: the Massachusetts Body of
Liberties.
(WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A13)
1642 Sep 23, Harvard College in
Cambridge, Mass., held its first commencement.
(AP, 9/23/97)
1643 May 19, Delegates from four
New England colonies, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New
Harbor, met in Boston to form a confederation: the United Colonies of
New England.
(AP, 5/19/97)
1643 Jul 5, 1st recorded tornado
in US was at Essex County, Massachusetts.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1643 Ann Radcliffe established the
first scholarship at Harvard.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A2)
1644 Jan 18, 1st reported UFO
sighting in America was made by perplexed pilgrims in Boston.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1644 Mar 7, Massachusetts
established 1st 2-chamber legislature in colonies.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1644 A house was constructed for
the Reverend John Lothrop, the founder of Barnstable, Mass. It later
formed the original part of the Sturgis Library, the oldest Library
building in the United States. The building is also one of the oldest
houses remaining on Cape Cod."
http://home.capecod.net/~sturgis/history.html
1646 Feb 28, Roger Scott was tried
in Massachusetts for sleeping in church.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1646 Oct 28, The 1st Protestant
church assembly for Indians took place in Massachusetts.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1647 May 26, A new law banned
Catholic priests from the colony of Massachusetts. The penalty was
banishment or death for a second offense.
(HN, 5/26/99)
1647 May 27, In Salem Achsah Young
became the first recorded American woman to be executed for being a
"witch."
(AP, 5/27/97)(HN, 5/27/98)
1647 Nov 11, Massachusetts passed
the 1st US compulsory school attendance law.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1647 William Bradford authored
"History of Plymouth Plantation."
(ON, 3/00, p.12)
1647 Samuel Danforth, a Puritan
minister, authored “An Almanack for the Year of Lord 1647.” It included
a 20-year chronology of notable events in the Massachusetts colony.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1648 May 13, Margaret Jones of
Plymouth was found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to be hanged
by the neck.
(HN, 5/13/99)
1648 Oct 18, Boston shoemakers
were authorized to form a guild to protect their interests; it's the
first American labor organization on record. The guild was authorized
by the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Mass. Bay Company).
(HN, 10/18/98)(AP, 10/18/07)
1649 Mar 26, John Winthrop,
Puritan and 1st Gov. of Massachusetts, died. [see Apr 5]
(SS, 3/26/02)
1649 Apr 5, John Winthrop (61),
1st governor of the colony at Mass. Bay, died. [see Mar 26]
(MC, 4/5/02)
1649 Marblehead, Mass., was
founded by Cornwall fishermen.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T7)
1651 Oct 14, Laws were passed in
Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1651 Dec 25, The General Court of
Boston levied a five shilling fine on anyone caught "observing any such
day as Christmas."
(HN, 12/25/98)
1652 Mar 28, Samuel Sewall,
British colonial merchant and one of the Salem witch trial judges, was
born.
(HN, 3/28/01)
1652 Jun 29, Massachusetts
declared itself an independent commonwealth.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1656 Jul 1, The 1st Quakers, Mary
Fisher and Ann Austin, arrived in Boston and were promptly arrested.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1656 Oct 3, Myles Standish
(b.1654), Plymouth Colony leader, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.1386)(MC, 10/3/01)
1657 May 9, William Bradford,
Governor (Plymouth Colony, Mass), died.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1659 Quaker leader Mary Dyer was
sentenced to death by a Puritan court in Massachusetts Bay Colony amid
the Salem witch trials. She refused to leave the colony and was hanged
in 1660.
(SFC, 3/30/97, Z1. p.6)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.1)
1659-1681 It was illegal to celebrate Christmas in
Massachusetts during this period.
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A24)
1661 Mar 24, William Leddra became
the last Quaker to be hanged in Boston. Quakers were last hanged on
Boston Common. Charles II ordered the executions stopped.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A18)(MC, 3/24/02)
1662 Major Josiah Winslow seized
Wamsutta, the Algonquin grand sachem known as Alexander, and demanded
an exclusive land sale arrangement with the Plymouth Colony. Alexander
became sick and died and his brother Metacom (24), known as Philip,
became grand sachem.
(AH, 6/02, p.46)
1664 May 28, 1st Baptist Church
was organized (Boston).
(MC, 5/28/02)
1664 Jul 23, Wealthy non-church
members in Massachusetts were given the right to vote.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1664 Jul 23, 4 British ships
arrived in Boston to drive the Dutch out of NY.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1668 May 27, Three colonists were
expelled from Massachusetts for being Baptists.
(HN, 5/27/99)
1672 May 15, 1st copyright law was
enacted by Massachusetts.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1672 Jun 25, 1st recorded monthly
Quaker meeting in US was held at Sandwich, Mass.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1672 Dec 10, Gov. Lovelace
announced monthly mail service between NY and Boston.
(MC, 12/10/01)
1674 Oct 15, Robert Herrick,
British poet (Together), was born in Mass.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1675 Jun 8, Three Wampanoag
Indians were hanged in Plymouth, Massachusetts. On the testimony of a
Native American witness, Plymouth Colony arrested three Wampanoags,
including a counselor to Metacom, a Pokanoket sachem. A jury among whom
were some Indian members convicted them of the recent murder of John
Sassamon, an advisor to Metacom.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip%27s_War)
1675 Jun 20, King Philip’s War
began when Indians--retaliating for the execution of three of their
people who had been charged with murder by the English--massacred
colonists at Swansea, Plymouth colony. Abenaki, Massachusetts, Mohegan
& Wampanoag Indians formed an anti English front. Wampanoag
warriors attacked livestock and looted farms.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip%27s_War)(AH, 6/02, p.46)
1675 Jun 23, An English youth shot
a Marauding Wampanoag warrior.
(AH, 6/02, p.46)
1675 Sep 9, Colonial authorities
officially declared war on the Wampanoag Indians. The war soon spread
to include the Abenaki, Norwottock, Pocumtuck and Agawam warriors.
(MC, 9/9/01)(AH, 6/02, p.47)
1675 Dec 19, Some 1,000 colonial
troops attacked the Narragansett winter village in Rhode Island. The
Great Swamp Fight ended with some 80 English killed and 600 Indians
dead, mostly women and children.
(AH, 6/02, p.48)
1675 In Boston, Mass., a law
forbade American Indians from setting foot in the city, as settlers
warred with area tribes. In 2005 although the law wasn’t enforced for
centuries it was a lingering source of anger for American Indians.
(AP, 5/20/05)
1676 Feb 10, In King Philip’s War
Narragansett and Nipmuck Indians raided Lancaster, Mass. Over 35
villagers were killed and 24 were taken captive including Mary
Rowlandson (1637-1711) and her 3 children. Rowlandson was freed after
11 weeks and an account of her captivity was published posthumously in
1682.
(AH, 6/02, p.48)(Econ, 2/21/09,
p.83)(http://tinyurl.com/cvrhcv)
1676 Feb, Mohawk Indians attacked
and killed all but 40 of Wampanoag Indians under Philip. NY Gov. Edmund
Andros had urged the Mohawks to attack the Wampanoags.
(AH, 6/02, p.48)
1676 Mar 29, Wampanoag allies
destroyed Providence, Rhode Island.
(AH, 6/02, p.48)
1676 Apr 18, Sudbury,
Massachusetts was attacked by Indians.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1676 Mar 29, Wampanoag allies
destroyed Providence, Rhode Island.
(AH, 6/02, p.48)
1676 Aug 12, Indian chief King
Philip, also known as Metacom, was killed by a Pocasset Indian
named Alderman in the swamps of Rhode Island. This ended the King
Philip’s War. Benjamin Church, a Plymouth volunteer, ordered that
Philip be beheaded and quartered. [see Aug 28]
(AH, 6/02, p.50)
1676 Aug 28, Indian chief King
Philip, also known as Metacom, was killed by English soldiers, ending
the war between Indians and colonists. [see Aug 12]
(HN, 8/28/98)
1676 Nov 16, 1st colonial prison
was organized at Nantucket Mass.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1677 Mar 13, Massachusetts gained
title to Maine for $6,000.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1679 Sep 18, New Hampshire became
a county Massachusetts Bay Colony.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1684 Jun 21, King Charles II
revoked the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony charter. [see 1691]
(HNQ, 11/23/00)(MC, 6/21/02)
1689 Apr 19, Residents of Boston
ousted their governor, Edmond Andros.
(HN, 4/19/97)
1690 Feb 3, The first paper money
in America was issued by the colony of Massachusetts. The currency was
used to pay soldiers fighting a war against Quebec.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.B3)(AP, 2/3/97)
1690 A newspaper called “Publick
Occurences Both Forreign and Domestick” was published in Boston, Mass.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A8)
1691 Sep 17, The Massachusetts Bay
Colony received a new charter. [see Oct 17]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1690 Sep 25, One of the earliest
American newspapers, “Publick Occurrences,” published its first and
last edition in Boston. The colonial governor and council disallowed
the pamphlet due to its contents.
(AP, 9/25/00)(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.D14)
1691 Oct 17, The Massachusetts Bay
Company along with Plymouth colony and Maine was incorporated into the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
(HN, 10/17/98)(HNQ, 11/23/00)
1692 Feb 28, The Salem witch hunts
began.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1692 Feb 29, Sarah Goode and
Tituba were accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, sparking the
hysteria that started the Salem Witch Trials.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1692 Mar 1, Sarah Goode, Sarah
Osborne and Tituba were arrested for the supposed practice of
witchcraft in Salem, Mass.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1692 Jun 10, Bridget Bishop was
hanged in Salem, Mass., for witchcraft. This was the first official
execution of the Salem witch trials.
(HN, 6/10/01)(WSJ, 1/18/08, p.W10)
1692 Aug 19, Five women were
hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of
witchcraft. Fourteen more people were executed that year and 150 others
are imprisoned.
(HN, 8/19/00)
1692 Sep 21, Two men and seven
women were executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1692 Sep 22, The last person was
hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Mass.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1692 Oct 8, Massachusetts Bay
Governor Phipps ordered that spectral evidence no longer be admitted in
witchcraft trials. Twenty people had died in the Salem witch trials. In
2005 Richard Francis authored “Judge Sewall’s Apology.” Sewall was one
of 3 judges presiding over the Salem trials. In 2006 the governor of
Massachusetts signed legislation exonerating 5 women executed in the
Salem witch trials of 1692, whose names had not yet been cleared.
(http://tinyurl.com/rlj1)(WSJ, 8/9/05, p.D8)(WSJ,
9/15/06, p.A10)
1697 In Boston’s Old South Church
Judge Sewall told the congregation that he accepted “blame and shame”
for the 1692 Salem witch trials. None of the other judges joined him in
repenting.
(Econ, 8/6/05, p.70)
1698 Jan 1, The Abenaki Indians
and the Massachusetts colonists signed a treaty ending the conflict in
New England.
(HN, 1/1/99)
1699 Jan 14, Massachusetts held a
day of fasting for wrongly persecuting "witches."
(MC, 1/14/02)
1699 Jul 6, Pirate Capt. William
Kidd was captured in Boston.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1704 Feb 28, Indians attacked
Deerfield, Mass. killing 40 and kidnapping 100.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1704 Apr 24, The Boston
News-Letter was established, first successful newspaper in U.S.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1704 May 1, Boston Newsletter
published the 1st US newspaper ad.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1706 Jan 17, Benjamin Franklin
(d.1790), American statesman, was born in Boston, the youngest boy in a
family of 17 children. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence
and wrote "Poor Richard’s Almanac." Carl Van Doren portrays Franklin as
a harmonious rationalist in his classic biography. David Morgan writes
of Franklin’s darker side in: "The Devious Dr. Franklin, Colonial
Agent." And Robert Middlekauff describes Franklin as a trickster in
his: "Benjamin Franklin and his Enemies." Franklin believed in white
superiority and said: "why increase the Sons of Africa by planting them
in America, when we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all the
Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely white.?" "If you would not
be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things
worth reading, or do things worth the writing."
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A12)(SFC,12/897, p.A27)(AP,
1/17/98)(AP, 4/17/98)(HN, 1/17/99)(HNQ, 11/19/01)
1708 Aug 29, French Canadian and
Indian forces attacked the village of Haverhill, Mass., killing 16
settlers.
(AP, 8/29/08)
1709 Boston minister Thomas
Bannister donated the book "Complete History of England with the
Lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof, Vol. 3" to Harvard Univ. It
was written by Bishop White Kennet and printed in 1706 in London.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1711 In Massachusetts 14 women,
who in 1692 had been accused and hanged or killed for being witches,
were cleared in a general amnesty.
(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.A10)
1716 Sep 14, The 1st lighthouse in
US was lit in Boston Harbor.
(www.lighthouse.cc/boston/history.html)
1716 Nov 26, The 1st lion
exhibited in America was in Boston.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1717 Apr 26, Pirate Black Sam
Bellamy died along with 143 others when their ship, the Whydah, sank
off of Wellfleet, Cape Cod. 2 men on the Whydah survived as did 7
others aboard the Mary Anne, a smaller ship loaded with Madeira wine.
The slave ship Whydah had just been captured by Bellamy in February as
it left Ouidau, Benin, with a load of sugar and indigo as well as
chests of silver and gold. 6 or the 9 survivors were later hanged for
piracy in Boston. In 1984 the wreck of the ship was discovered by Barry
Clifford.
(SFC, 3/4/96, p.A4)(WSJ, 9/12/07, p.D9)
1721 Apr 19, Roger Sherman
(d.1793) of Connecticut, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was
born in Newton, Massachusetts. He was only man to sign the four most
important documents that were most significant in the formation of the
United States. Sherman signed the Association (the 1774 compact to
boycott British goods), the Declaration of Independence, Articles of
Confederation and Constitution. Sherman was among the first to declare
that Parliament had no right to legislate for the colonies. He was a
delegate to the Continental Congress, served in the first U.S.
House of Representatives and was a U.S. senator.
(HN, 4/19/97)(HNQ, 7/10/99)
1721 Jun 26, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston
gave the 1st smallpox inoculation in Boston. The epidemic had arrived
by ship from Barbados.
(ON, 3/05, p.4)
1721 Jul 21, Doctors in Boston
raised objections to a new practice of using live smallpox to inoculate
patients against the disease. A smallpox epidemic had recently broken
out in Boston and Cotton Mather (58), following some study, encouraged
the inoculation technique to prevent death from the disease.
(ON, 3/05, p.4)
1721 Oct 6, Deaths from smallpox
in Boston reached 203 with 2,757 people infected.
(ON, 3/05, p.5)
1722 Cotton Mather authored “An
Account of the Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox…” This
followed work in support of inoculation trials in Boston.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1730 Smallpox returned to Boston,
but by this time inoculation was recognized as a viable means of
preventing death from the disease.
(ON, 3/05, p.5)
1733 Jan 18, The 1st polar bear
exhibited in America was in Boston.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1733 Jul 30, Society of Freemasons
opened their 1st American lodge in Boston.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1735 Jan 1, Paul Revere (d.1818),
U.S. patriot who rode through the streets of Boston during the American
Revolution, warning of the British landings, was born to Apollos
Rivoire and Deborah Hitchbourne, one of 13 children.
(HN, 1/1/99)(HNQ, 6/27/02)
1735 Aug 18, The Evening Post
began publishing in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1735 Oct 30, John Adams, second
president of the United States (1797-1801), was born in Braintree
(Quincy), Mass.
(AP, 10/30/97)(HN, 10/30/98)(MC, 10/30/01)
1737 Rev. Andrew Le Mercier, a
Huguenot living in Boston, set the first horses out to graze on Sable
Island, 100 miles east of Nova Scotia. A few decades later Thomas
Hancock of Boston plundered some 60 horses from Acadian settlers
expelled from Nova Scotia by British overlords, and settled them on
Sable Island. Hardy descendants of the horses still thrived in 1998.
(SFC, 7/23/98, p.C3)
1738 Jul 3, John Singleton Copley,
finest colonial American artist, was born in Mass.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1742 Sep 24, The Faneuil Hall in
Boston opened to public.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1745 Mar 9, Bells for 1st American
carillon were shipped from England to Boston.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1746 Oct 7, William Billings, hymn
composer (Rose of Sharon), was born in Boston, Mass.
(HN, 10/7/00)(MC, 10/7/01)
1746 The first lectures on
electricity in the American colonies were given by John Winthrop IV at
Harvard in 1746. Winthrop, born in 1714, was the professor of
mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard. Benjamin Franklin began
his experiments in electricity in 1747.
1746 Elisha Nims (26) died from a
musket ball at Fort Massachusetts during the French and Indian War. His
grave was discovered in 1852 and his last remains were reburied in 2000.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A13)
1749 Jun 25, Massachusetts
residents were asked to fast due to a severe drought.
(SFC, 6/25/09, p.D8)
1750 A Welshman opened the first
modern shoe factory in Lynn, Mass.
(WSJ, 4/25/00, p.A24)
1753 Smallpox hit North America
and a 38% infection rate was recorded in Boston. Benjamin Franklin
lobbied for variolation.
(NW, 10/14/02, p.47)
1754 Jun 19, The Albany Congress
opened. New York colonial Gov. George Clinton called for the meeting to
discuss better relations with Indian tribes and common defensive
measures against the French. The attendees included Indians and
representatives from Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Benjamin Franklin
attended and presented his Plan of Union, which was adopted by the
conference. The meeting ended on July 11.
(AH, 2/06,
p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Congress)
1755 Nov 18, The Cape Ann (Boston)
earthquake, estimated at 6.0-6.5, hit the east coast from the
Chesapeake Bay to Nova Scotia.
(http://geology.about.com/library/bl/blboston1755eq.htm)
1757 Jan 16, Samuel McIntire,
architect of Salem, Massachusetts, was born.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1760 Mar 20, The great fire of
Boston destroyed 349 buildings.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1762 The Nicholas Brothers Chair
Manufactory operated in Westminster, Mass. In 1900 the firm moved to
Gardner and around 1907 was renamed to Nicholas & Stone.
(SFC, 3/29/06, p.G6)
1763 Aug 8, Charles Bulfinch, 1st
US professional architect (Mass State House), was born in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1764 May 24, Bostonian lawyer
James Otis denounced "taxation without representation" and called for
the colonies to unite in demonstrating their opposition to Britain's
new tax measures.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1764 Jan 25, Harvard Hall in
Cambridge, Mass., burned to the ground and destroyed most of the 5,000
volumes in its library.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A9)
1765 Aug 14, Massachusetts
colonists challenged British rule by an Elm (Liberty Tree).
(MC, 8/14/02)
1765 Aug 25, In protest over the
stamp tax, American colonists sacked and burned the home of
Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson. In 1774 he was exiled to
Britain. In 1974 Bernard Bailyn authored “The Ordeal of Thomas
Hutchinson.”
(HN, 8/25/98)(WSJ, 8/25/07, p.P9)
1765 Shaw Furniture of Cambridge,
Mass., was in business as early as this time and continued operating
into the 1920s. During the 18th century Shaw made furniture using
convict labor from Charleston State Prison.
(SFC, 10/29/08, p.G2)
1766 Sep 17, Samuel Wilson, the
future Uncle Sam, was born in Menotomy Mass. Menotomy later became
Arlington. Samuel moved to Troy, New York, where he and his brother set
up meat packing plants which later provided food for the US Army during
the War of 1812.
(WC, Summer ‘97, p.3)
1767 Jul 11, John Quincy Adams,
the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), was born in
Braintree, Mass.
(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98 (PGA, 12/9/98)
1768 Oct 1, English troops under
general Gage landed in Boston.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1768 The Jeremiah Lee Mansion was
built in Marblehead. Lee later became a fatality of the
Lexington-Concord battle.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T9)
1770 March 5, British troops
taunted by a crowd of colonists fired on an unruly mob in Boston and
killed five citizens in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre.
The fracas between a few angry Boston men and one British sentry ended
with five men dead or dying in the icy street corner of King Street and
Shrimton’s Lane. Captain Thomas Preston did not order the eight British
soldiers under his command to fire into the hostile crowd. The nervous
soldiers claimed to be confused by shouts of "Why do you not fire?"
coming from all sides. Versions of the event rapidly circulated through
the colonies, bolstering public support for the Patriot cause. The
British Captain Preston and seven soldiers were defended by John Adams.
The captain and five of the soldiers were acquitted, the other two
soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and were branded on the hand
with a hot iron. The first colonist killed in the American Revolution
was the former slave, Crispus Attucks, shot by the British at the
Boston Massacre. The event was later illustrated by Boston engraver
Paul Revere.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(A&IP, Miers, p.18)(SFC,
12/18/96, p.A25)(AP, 3/5/98)(HN, 3/5/98)(HNPD, 3/5/99)(WSJ, 4/12/08,
p.W14)
1770 Dec 12, The British soldiers
responsible for the "Boston Massacre" were acquitted on murder charges.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1772 Nov 2, The first Committees
of Correspondence were formed in Massachusetts under Samuel Adams.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1773 Mar 26, Nathaniel Bowditch
(d.1838), mathematician, astronomer, polyglot, author (Marine Sextant),
was born in Salem, Mass. In 1802 he published "The New American
Practical Navigator."
(SS, 3/26/02)(AH, 12/02, p.22)
1773 Sep 1, Phillis Wheatley, a
slave from Boston, published a collection of poetry, "Poems on Various
Subjects, Religious and Moral," in London.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1773 Dec 16, Some 50-60 "Sons of
Liberty" of revolutionary Samuel Adams disguised as Mohawks defied the
3 cents per pound tax on tea boarded a British East India Tea
Company ship and dumped 342 chests of British tea into the Boston
Harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. Parliament had
passed the 1773 Tea Act not to regulate trade or make the colonies pay
their own administrative costs, but to save the nearly bankrupt British
East India Tea Company. The Tea Act gave the company a monopoly over
the American tea trade and authorized the sale of 17 million pounds of
tea in America at prices cheaper than smuggled Dutch tea. In spite of
the savings, Americans would not accept what they considered to be
taxation without representation. Overreacting to the Boston Tea Party,
the British attempted to punish Boston and the whole colony of
Massachusetts with the Intolerable Acts of 1774--another in the series
of events that ultimately led to American independence. A bill for the
tea ($196) was paid Sep 30, 1961.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(A&IP, Miers,
p.18)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(AP, 12/16/97) (HNPD, 12/16/98)(MC,
9/30/01)
1774 Mar 7, A 2nd Boston tea party
was held.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)
1774 Mar 7, The British closed the
port of Boston to all commerce.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1774 Mar 25, English Parliament
passed the Boston Port Bill.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1774 Mar 28, Britain passed the
Coercive Act against Massachusetts. [see May 20]
(HN, 3/28/98)
1774 May 20, The British
Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their
increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts closed the port of Boston.
[see Mar 28]
(HN, 5/20/99)
1774 Sep 26, John Chapman
(d.1845), later known as Johnny Appleseed, was born in
Massachusetts. A pioneer agriculturalist of early America,
Chapman began his trek in 1797, collecting apple seedlings from western
Pennsylvania and establishing apple nurseries around the early American
frontier. Chapman was a Swedenborgian missionary, a land speculator and
an eccentric dresser (he hated shoes and seldom wore them. He planted
orchards across western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana from seed.
(www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=94)(T&L, 10/1980,
p.42)(ON, 4/09, p.10)
1775 Feb 9, English Parliament
declared the Mass. colony is in rebellion.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1775 Feb 21, As troubles with
Great Britain increased, colonists in Massachusetts voted to buy
military equipment for 15,000 men.
(HN, 2/21/99)
1775 Apr 18, Several post riders
set out to warn colonists of the British attack that started the
American Revolution. One patriotic myth that grew out of that movement
began with a poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called "Paul Revere's
Ride." Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington,
Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming.
American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott
warned that "the British are coming". Only Prescott galloped all the
way to Concord. Revere was corralled by a British cavalry patrol near
Lexington, MA; Dawes and Prescott escaped. A company of over 700
British troops marched toward Concord. 23-year-old church sexton Robert
Newman hung two lanterns in the Old North Church to warn riders that
the British were leaving Boston by boat to march on Concord. Every
April, a descendant of the 18th-century patriot still climbs to the
steeple of Old North Church and hangs two small tin and glass lanterns.
(HN, 4/18/98)(ON, 3/01, p.2)(HNQ, 7/5/01)(AP,
4/18/07)
1775 Apr 19, Alerted by Paul
Revere the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington Common with
the Battle of Lexington-Concord. Capt. John Parker mustered 78
militiamen on the town green of Lexington to send a warning to the 700
British soldiers marching to Concord to seize weapons and gunpowder.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage sent a force of 700 British troops to Concord,
west of Boston, to capture colonial weapons and arrest Patriot leaders
Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Arriving at Lexington on their way to
Concord, the British were met on the town common by about 70 Minutemen.
The "shot heard ‘round the world" ignited the American Revolutionary
War. No one knows who fired the first shot, but when the smoke cleared,
eight Americans lay dead. The British suffered more than 250 casualties
as they opposed more than 1,500 Massachusetts men. The events are
documented in the 1997 book "Liberty by Thomas Fleming." Isaac Davis
was among the first to die at Lexington and Concord.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(V.D.-H.K.p.224)(AP,
4/19/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14) (HN, 4/19/97)(HNPD, 4/19/99)(HNQ,
10/17/00)
1775 Apr 20, British troops began
the siege of Boston.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1775 Jul 3, Gen. George Washington
took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1775 Jul 16, John Adams graduated
from Harvard.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1775 Jun 17, The Battle at
Bunker’s Hill was actually fought on Breed’s Hill near Boston. It
lasted less than 2 hours and was the deadliest of the Revolutionary
War. The British captured the hill on their third attempt but suffered
over 1,000 casualties vs. about 400-600 for the Americans. Patriotic
hero Dr. Joseph Warren died in the battle. Patriot General William
Prescott allegedly told his men, "Don't one of you fire until you see
the whites of their eyes!" British casualties were estimated at
226 dead and 828 wounded, while American casualties were estimated at
140 dead and 301 wounded.
(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)(AP, 6/17/98)(HNQ, 4/1/99)(AH,
10/07, p.72)
1775 Oct 13, The U.S. Navy had its
origins as the Continental Congress ordered the construction of a naval
fleet. The Continental Congress authorized construction of two
warships. The 1st ship in the US Navy was the schooner Hannah. It was
commissioned by George Washington and outfitted at Beverly, Mass. In
2006 Ian W. Toll authored “Six Frigates: The Epic History of the
Founding of the US Navy.
(AP, 10/13/97)(HN, 10/13/98)(SFC, 2/12/00,
p.B3)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.94)
1775 Nov 17, George Washington was
in Boston with his ragtag army facing 12,000 Redcoat regulars.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)
1776 Mar 2, Americans began
shelling British troops in Boston. Henry Knox had managed to drag 58
canon and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga to the Dorchester Heights above
Boston.
(HN, 3/2/99)(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.W10)
1776 Mar 5, A terrific storm
wrecked British hope of a counterattack on Dorchester Heights in
Boston, Mass.
(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.W10)
1776 Mar 17, British forces
evacuated Boston to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War. Suffolk
Ct. Massachusetts declared this day Evacuation Day
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.8)
1776 Apr 3, George Washington
received an honorary doctor of law degree from Harvard College.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1777 Jul 8, The Continental
frigate Hancock was captured by the British ships Rainbow and Flora.
The prisoners, including cabin-boy John Blatchford, were taken to
Halifax.
(ON, 1/00, p.4)
1779 John Adams drafted most of
the Massachusetts state constitution.
(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
1779 The captured journal of
British officer Henry De Berniere was published by John Gill, member of
the Sons of Liberty. Gill had printed many anti-British pamphlets
including the rebel newspaper Boston Gazette.
(AH, 10/01, p.56)
1782 Jan 18, Daniel Webster
(d.1852, aka Black Dan) American political leader, Senator and orator,
lawyer, statesman, administrator and diplomat, was born in Salisbury,
N.H. In 1830 he proclaimed "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable!" He was Secretary of State before the Civil War.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AHD, p.1452)(WSJ, 9/30/97,
p.A20)(AP, 1/18/98)(HN, 1/18/99)
1782 Dec 29, 1st nautical almanac
in US was published by Samuel Stearns in Boston.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1786 Aug 29, Shay’s Rebellion
began in Springfield, Mass. Daniel Shay led a rebellion in
Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the non-payment of
debt. Shay was a Revolutionary War veteran who led a short-lived
insurrection in western Massachusetts to protest a tax increase that
had to be paid in cash, a hardship for veteran farmers who relied on
barter and didn‘t own enough land to vote. The taxes were to pay off
the debts from the Revolutionary War, and those who couldn‘t pay were
evicted or sent to prison.. [see Jan 25, 1787]
(HNQ, 7/6/00)(www.shaysnet.com/dshays.html)
1786 Oct 20, Harvard University
organized the 1st astronomical expedition in US.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1787 Jan 25, Shays' Rebellion
suffered a setback when debt-ridden farmers led by Capt. Daniel Shays
failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass. Small farmers in
Springfield, Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays continued their revolt
against tax laws. Federal troops broke up the protesters of what later
became known as Shay’s Rebellion. [see Aug 29, 1786]
(AP, 1/25/98)(HN,
1/25/99)(www.sjchs-history.org/Shays.html)
1787 Feb 4, Shay’s Rebellion, an
uprising of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers, failed.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1787 Nov 18, The 1st Unitarian
minister in US was ordained in Boston.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1788 Feb 6, Massachusetts became
the sixth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 2/6/97)(HN, 2/6/99)
1788 "The Narrative of John
Blanchford" was published. Blanchford (15), a Massachusetts cabin-boy,
had been captured by the British and sent to prison in Halifax and
later to Sumatra from where he escaped after a 6 year ordeal.
(ON, 1/00, p.5)
1789 Massachusetts commenced work
on the Middlesex Canal. It was completed in 1808.
(Panic, p.12)
1789-1794 Samuel Adams (1722-1803) served as Lt. Gov.
of Mass. He was also a propagandist, political figure, revolutionary
patriot and statesman who helped to organize the Boston Tea Party.
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(HN, 9/27/98)(MC, 9/27/01)
1791 Mar 10, John Stone of
Concord, Mass, patented a pile driver.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1791 A document was released in
2004 from Pittsfield, Mass., that contained a 1791 bylaw to protect the
windows of a new meeting house from baseball players.
(SFC, 5/12/04, p.A2)
1792 Feb 23, Humane Society of
Massachusetts was incorporated. It erected life-saving stations for
distressed mariners.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1794 Apr 11, Edward Everett,
governor of Massachusetts, statesman and orator, was born.
(HN, 4/11/98)
1794 George Washington established
the first national armory at Springfield, Mass.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A20)
1795 Samuel Adams and Paul Revere
laid the cornerstone for the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
(AH, 10/07, p.73)
1797 Sep 20, The US frigate
Constitution (Old Ironsides) was launched in Boston. [see Oct 21]
(MC, 9/20/01)
1797 Oct 21, The 44-gun 204-foot
U.S. Navy frigate USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, was
launched in Boston's harbor. It was never defeated in 42 battles. 216
crew members set sail again in 1997 for its 200th birthday. [see Sep 20]
(AP, 10/21/97)(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/22/97,
p.A6)
1797 Mrs. Gannett of Mass.
(1760-1827), born as Deborah Sampson, authored her memoir. She had
fought in the American Revolution as a man under the alias Robert
Shurtleff. In 2004 Alfred F. Young authored "Masquerade: The Life and
Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier.”
(www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/sampson.html)(SSFC, 4/11/04,
p.M4)
1798 The Massachusetts State House
was built in Boston on land owned by patriot merchant John Hancock, It
was designed by Charles Bullfinch (1763-1844), who later designed the
US Capitol in Washington.
(AH, 10/07,
p.72)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bulfinch)
1803 Oct 2, Samuel Adams (b.1722),
former Gov. of Mass. (1793-1797), died. He was a propagandist,
political figure, revolutionary patriot and statesman who helped to
organize the Boston Tea Party. In 2008 Ira Stoll authored “Samuel
Adams: A Life.”
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(WSJ, 11/3/08,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams)
1804 Jul 4, Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864) American novelist and short-story writer, was born in
Marblehead, [Salem], Massachusetts. Hawthorne was born to a prominent
but decaying family. One of his ancestors, a judge in the Salem
witchcraft trials, became the model for the accursed founder of The
House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne would often wonder whether the
decline of his family’s fortune was a punishment for the sins of his
"sable-cloaked steeple-crowned progenitors. "Marblehead is also the
location of the house in his book "The House of Seven Gables." He also
wrote "The Scarlet Letter."
(WUD, 1994, p.651)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T9)(HN,
7/4/98)(IB, 12/7/98)
1805 Dec 10, William Lloyd
Garrison (d.1879), abolitionist publisher, was born in Newburyport,
Mass. In 1831 he published "The Liberator." In 1998 Henry Mayer
published "All On Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of
American Slavery."
(SFEC, 1/3/99, BR p.1)(MC, 12/10/01)
1805 The Massachusetts state
Legislature staged a mock impeachment trial of Pres. Jefferson. His
affair with Sally Hemmings was one of the charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A1)
1805 As early as 1805, Bostonian
Frederic Tudor considered ways to make money by exporting ice, a
valueless commodity in New England, to the tropics. Tudor supported
technical innovations, like the horse-drawn sleigh with saw-like
runners, which improved the cutting, shipping and storage of large ice
blocks. Recognizing that people living in warm climates were not
familiar with cool food and drinks, Tudor traveled to prospective
markets making ice cream and providing free ice for barkeepers. By
1856, Tudor's role as the "Ice King" was firmly established as 146,000
tons of ice shipped from Boston transformed the eating habits of people
from the Philippines to the southern United States.
(HNPD, 4/13/99)
1807 Dec 17, John Greenleaf
Whittier, American poet, was born in Haverhill, Mass. He was an
abolitionist, reformer and founder of the Liberal Party.
(HN, 12/17/99)(AP, 12/17/07)
1808 Mar 6, 1st college orchestra
in US was founded at Harvard.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1808 Jul 9, A leather-splitting
machine was patented by Samuel Parker of Billerica, MA.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1809 Jan 19, Edgar Allan Poe
(d.1949), American writer, was born in Boston. His father, David Poe,
was an Irish-American actor and abandoned his family shortly after
Edgar’s birth. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, died in 1811 and
he grew up with a foster family. Poe studied briefly at the University
of Virginia, but then he quarreled with his foster father and went to
Boston in 1827, where he published his first volume of poetry
anonymously. In the early 1840s Poe became known for his lyrical,
brooding poems and detective stories, such as "The Gold Bug" and
"Murders at the Rue Morgue." In fact, he is recognized as the father of
the modern detective story. Poe was unafraid to criticize literary
practices of the time, stressing the importance of artistic value more
than moral value. After battles with alcoholism and his wife Virginia's
illness and death, Poe became depressed but continued to write. He
became engaged again in 1849 but soon died at the age of 40. His best
known stories include: "Fall of the House of Usher " and "The Tell-Tale
Heart." His most famous poems are "The Raven" and Annabel Lee."
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.38)(SFEC, 1/12/97,
p.T5) (AP, 1/19/98)(HNPD, 1/19/99)
1809 Dec 30, Wearing masks at
balls was forbidden in Boston.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1809 Boston’s Exchange Coffee
House, which also contained a hotel and offices, opened and was said to
be the largest building in the country. It burned down in 1818.
(Econ, 11/24/07,
p.91)(www.nmrls.org/news/nov07/mhl.shtml)
1810-1813 Boston-based whalers slaughtered an
estimated 150,000 fur seals on the Farallon Islands, 28 miles west of
San Francisco. Russian hunters followed and occupied the islands for
the next 25 years during which they wiped out the remaining fur seals.
Fur seals began to return around 1977, but their first pup wasn’t born
until 1996.
(Bay, 4/07, p.33)
1811 Judge Joseph Story (32),
speaker of the State House of Rep., had a Federal style house built in
Salem and was appointed by Pres. Madison as associate justice to the US
Supreme Court.
(WSJ, 7/28/00, p.W10)
1811 Francis Cabot Lowell, an
American industrialist, moved to England and gathered information on
mill details. He returned to the US and started the textile industry in
New England and the Massachusetts mill town of his name.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1811 Jan 6, Charles Sumner
(d.1874), leading anti-slavery senator and author, was born in Boston.
He was active in the movement to outlaw war, opposed the Mexican War
and was a founder in 1848 of the Free-Soil party. A senator from
Massachusetts, Sumner was an ardent abolitionist and helped organize
the Republican party. In c1867 Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner
popularized the name Alaska for the territory that had been known as
Russian America in a famous Senate speech supporting the treaty to
purchase Russian America: "There is the National flag. He must be cold,
indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without
pride of country. If in a foreign land, the flag is companionship, and
country itself, with all its endearments."
(HNQ, 9/28/98)(AP, 6/14/97)(HNQ, 11/17/98)
1812 Feb 11, Massachusetts Gov.
Elbridge Gerry signed a re-districting law that favored his party
-- giving rise to the term "gerrymandering."
(AP, 2/11/97)
1812 Maine separated from the
state of Massachusetts.
(WSJ, 8/6/99, p.W12)
1812 The 1st New England cotton
mill was erected in Fall River, Mass.
(Panic, p.8)
1813 Jan 24, Theodore Sedgwick
(b.1746), arch-Federalist and former Massachusetts Senator (1796-1799),
died. In 2007 John Sedgwick authored “In My Blood: Six Generations of
Madness and Desire in an American Family.”
(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000222)(WSJ,
1/6/07, p.P13)
1814 Oct 19, Mercy Otis Warren
(b.1728), Massachusetts playwright, died.
(WSJ, 2/5/08,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_Otis_Warren)
1814 Nov 23, Elbridge Gerry
(b.1744), former Massachusetts governor (1810-1811), died in office as
vice-president of the US under Madison (1812-1814).
(WSJ, 10/22/04,
p.W5)(www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/gerry.htm)
1815 John Roulstone of Sterling,
Mass., penned the first 3 stanzas of the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
after his classmate Mary Sawyer came to school followed by her pet lamb.
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.B6)
1816 Dec 13, Patent for a dry dock
was issued to John Adamson in Boston.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1816 Henry Hall, a Cape Cod
farmer, discovered that sand spread over wild cranberry plants induced
good growth.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.123)
1817 Jul 12, Henry David Thoreau
(d.1862), essayist, naturalist and poet, was born in Concord, Mass. His
work included "On Walden Pond." He referred to the three Greek
goddesses of fate: Clotho (spinner of the thread of destiny), Lachesis
(disposer of lots) and especially Atropos (who holds the scissors that
will cut endeavor short). "We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, that
never turns aside." He was also the author of the essays "Civil
Disobedience and Slavery in Massachusetts."
(AHD, p.1339)(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.66)(HFA, '96,
p.34)(HN, 7/12/98)
1817 Aug 18, Gloucester, Mass,
newspapers told of a wild sea serpent seen offshore.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1818 May 10, Paul Revere (b.1735)
American patriot, died in Boston. Revere, best known for his midnight
ride, fathered 16 children-eight by his first wife Sarah Orne and eight
by his second wife, Rachel Walker. Born to Apollos Rivoire and Deborah
Hitchbourne, Paul Revere was one of 13 children.
(AP, 5/10/97)(HNQ, 7/26/99)
1818 Aug 13, Suffragist Lucy
Stone, women's rights activist, founder of Woman's Journal, was born in
West Brookfield, Mass.
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)
1819 Jul 9, Elias Howe (d.1867),
inventor of the sewing machine, was born in Spencer, Mass. Howe, a
machinist, developed his sewing machine in 1843-45 and patented it in
1846. Although Howe's machine sewed only short, straight lines, tailors
and seamstresses saw it as a threat to their jobs. Unable to market his
machine in America, Howe took it to Britain where he sold the rights to
an English manufacturer in 1847. Upon his return to the United States,
Howe discovered that his patent had been infringed upon by other sewing
machine manufacturers, such as Isaac Singer. After a lengthy court
battle, Howe's patent was upheld and royalties from sewing machine
sales made him a wealthy man.
(WUD, 1994, p.689)(HN, 7/9/99)(MC, 7/9/02)
1819 Sep 16, Dr. John Jeffries,
who crossed the English Channel (1785) with Frenchman Jean-Pierre
Blanchard for the first time in a hydrogen balloon, died in Boston.
(HN, 5/15/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1819 Nov, Nantucket whalers lost
their ship to a white whale and attempted to make landfall on the coast
of South America. 8 crewmen survived after they consumed 7 of their
mates. [see Owen Chase in 1821]
(WSJ, 4/28/00, p.W6)
1819 The Pilgrim Society was
established in Plymouth and undertook to build Pilgrim Hall.
(AM, 11/00, p.16)
1820 Feb 15, American suffragist
Susan B. Anthony (d.1906) was born in Adams, Mass. Her biography by
Lynn Sherr was titled: "Failure Is Impossible."
(SFEC, 9/21/97, Par p.4)(AP, 2/15/98)(HN, 2/15/98)
1820 An American whaling ship from
Brighton, Massachusetts, was later believed to be the first to enter
Japanese waters.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.64)
1821 Owen Chase wrote "Narrative
of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the White-Whale
ship Essex." The story inspired Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick." In 2000
Nathaniel Philbrick authored "In the Heart of the Sea," a complete
investigation into the Nantucket whaler’s story and "the taboo of
gastronomic incest."
(WSJ, 4/28/00, p.W6)
1821 The Inquirer and Mirror
newspaper began publishing on Nantucket.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T5)
1821 Amherst College was founded
in Amherst, Mass.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amherst_College)
1821 The Boston English High
School, the first US public high school, held its opening classes.
(HNQ, 7/5/00)
1822 Feb 23, Boston was granted a
charter to incorporate as a city.
(AP, 2/23/98) (HN, 3/19/98)
1822 Mar 19, Boston was
incorporated as a city.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1824 Lydia Maria Child of Wayland,
Mass., authored "Hobomok," a novel of a Puritan girl who falls in love
with an Indian after her fiancé is lost at sea. She later
founded Juvenile Miscellany, the 1st children’s magazine in the US. She
later authored "The Frugal Housewife" and "An Appeal in Favor of That
Class of Americans Called Africans" (1833) and the poem: "The New
England’s Boy’s Song About Thanksgiving Day" (Over the river, and
through the woods…). In 1994 Carolyn Karcher authored her biography:
"The First Woman in the Republic."
(WSJ, 11/21/02, p.A1)
1825-1858 The Suffolk Bank operated a clearing house
in Boston that served the New England region, and required all country
banks doing business in Boston to maintain clearing deposits.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A23)
1825-1888 Sandwich glass, also known as pressed
glass, was made by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Works in Sandwich,
Mass. They made the original dolphin-based glassware.
(SFC, 7/9/97, Z1 p.3)
1826 Feb 13, The American
Temperance Society formed in Boston.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1826 Jul 4, John Adams died at age
90 in Braintree [Quincy], Mass, just a few hours after Jefferson.
Because communications was slow in those days, Adams and Jefferson, at
their death, thought the other was still alive. Adams' last words were,
"Thomas Jefferson still survives." It was 50 years to the day after the
Declaration of Independence was adopted. Adams was the 2nd president of
the US. A multi-generational biography of the Adams family was later
written by Paul C. Nagel: "Descent from Glory." The Joseph Ellis book
The Passionate Edge" helped restore Adams to his rightful place in the
American pantheon. The 1972 musical film 1776 focused on Adams’ efforts
to get an independence resolution through Congress. In 1998 C. Bradley
Thompson published "John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty." In 2001
David McCullough authored "John Adams." In 2005 James Grant authored
“John Adams: Party of One.”
(A&IP, p.29)(AP, 7/4/97)(SFC, 7/4/98, p.E4)(IB,
Internet, 12/7/98)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 5/30/01, p.A20)(WSJ,
3/24/05, p.D8)
1826 Oct 7, The first railway in
the United States opened at Quincy, Massachusetts.
(HN, 10/7/98)
1827 Luther Roby, a Concord
printer, published "A Journal Kept By Mr. John Howe While He Was
Employed As A British Spy during the Revolutionary War; Also While He
Was Engaged In The Smuggling Business." The book was later thought to
based on the journal of British officer Henry De Berniere and published
by John Gill, member of the Sons of Liberty, in 1779.
(AH, 10/01, p.56)
1829 Mar 2, New England Asylum for
the Blind, 1st in US, was incorporated in Boston.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1829 Jul 4, In Boston, Mass.,
abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) gave a passionate
antislavery sermon at the Park Street Church and was attacked by a
white supremacist mob who dragged him from the pulpit and beat him
nearly to death. Garrison published the anti-slavery newspaper, the
Liberator, from 1831-1865.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1561.html)(AH, 10/07,
p.72)
1829 Aug 16, The original Siamese
twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston aboard the ship Sachem
to be exhibited to the Western world.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1829 Sep 28, Walker's Appeal, a
racial antislavery pamphlet, was published in Boston.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1829 Oct 16, Tremont Hotel, 1st US
modern hotel, opened in Boston.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1830 Jan 1, William Lloyd Garrison
published the first edition of a journal entitled The Liberator,
calling for the complete and immediate emancipation of all slaves in
the United States. [see 1831]
(HN, 1/1/99)
1830 Dec 10, Emily Dickinson
(d.1886), American poet, was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Perhaps
the best-known woman poet in the United States today, Dickinson led a
rather secluded life. After studying at Amherst Academy and then for
one year at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, she lived with her
family and never married. The few friends that Emily Dickinson did have
received regular gifts of poetry and letters from her. Although she
wrote poetry constantly, she never seriously pursued publishing her
work. Only about 10 poems were published in her lifetime, and those
were submitted for publication without her permission. After her death
in 1886, more than 1,700 of her poems, which she had bound together in
bundles, were discovered and published. "They say that God is
everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse."
(HNPD, 12/8/98)(AP, 1/10/99)
1830 A year after leaving office
as the sixth president of the United States, the Plymouth district of
Massachusetts unexpectedly elected John Quincy Adams to the House of
Representatives, where he served until he suffered a stroke on the
House floor in 1848. He died two days later. Adams at the time enjoyed
the distinction of having been the only son to follow his father to the
presidency.
(HNQ, 5/31/01)
1830 A Massachusetts spice trading
ship was seized by pirates in Sumatra. In 2001 "Drums of Quallah
Battoo: Salem Pepper Traders and Sumatran Pirates" by Charles P Corn
(d.2001) was to be published.
(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A19)
1830 Commercial bottling
operations for ketchup began in Boston.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.E4)
1830 Samuel Morrill, a newspaper
printer, cooked up a new ink in his kitchen in Andover, Mass., forming
a company that ultimately become Sun Chemical. In 2004 it was the
largest maker of ink in the world.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1831 Jan 1, William Lloyd
Garrison, 24-year-old reformer of Massachusetts, began publishing his
newspaper The Liberator, dedicated to the abolition of slavery.
Garrison's stridency and uncompromising position on both the
institution of slavery and slave owners offended many in the North and
South, but he vowed to continue the fight until slavery was abolished.
In the first issue of his newspaper, he wrote, "I am aware that many
object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as
justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write,
with moderation. No! No!" Garrison once burned a copy of the U.S.
Constitution, condemning it as "a covenant with death and an agreement
with hell" because it did not forbid slavery. The Liberator ceased
publication in 1865 after the 13th Amendment was passed, outlawing
slavery. [see 1830]
(HNPD, 12/31/98)
1831 Jul 4, "America (My Country
'Tis of Thee)" was 1st sung in Boston. [see Jul 4, 1832]
(Maggio, 98)
1831 Aug 10, William Driver of
Salem, Massachusetts, was the first to use the term "Old Glory" in
connection with the American flag, when he gave that name to a large
flag aboard his ship, the Charles Daggett.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1832 Jul 4, The song "America" was
sung publicly for the first time at a Fourth of July celebration by a
group of children at Park Street Church in Boston. The words were
written on a scrap of paper in half an hour by Dr. Samuel Francis
Smith, a Baptist minister, and were set to the music of "God Save the
King."
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1832 Jul 25, The 1st US railroad
accident was at Granite Railway, Quincy, Mass., and 1 died.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1833 Jan 8, Boston Academy of
Music, 1st US music school, was established.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1835 Dec 13, Phillips Brooks, the
American Episcopal bishop, was born in Boston. He wrote the words to "O
Little Town of Bethlehem."
(AP, 12/13/99)
1835 The Paine Furniture Co. began
operations in Boston, Mass. It later moved to Cape Cod changed its name
to Paine’s Patio.
(SFC, 10/1/08, p.G6)
1836 In Boston a small group of
New England intellectuals began gathering at the home of minister
George Ripley to discuss issues of religious and philosophical
importance. The group, known as the Transcendental Club, disbanded in
1840. In 2007 Philip F. Gura authored “American Transcendentalism: A
History.”
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M3)
1837 Oct 1, Robert Gould
Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, first unit of black
soldiers in Civil War, was born to a prominent abolitionist family.
He was later asked by the governor of Massachusetts to organize
the first regiment of black troops in a Northern state. Shaw recruited
free blacks from all over New England. On May 13, 1863, the 54th
Massachusetts Regiment was mustered into service in the Union Army with
Shaw as its commanding officer. After leading the regiment in a handful
of smaller actions, Shaw and the 54th joined two brigades of white
troops in an assault on Confederates holding Battery Wagner on the
South Carolina coast. Although the action was unsuccessful and Shaw
himself died leading the charge, the courage of black troops under fire
was proven beyond any doubt. This Kurz and Allison print honors Shaw
and the 54th Massachusetts at Fort Wagner.
(HNPD, 10/1/98)(HN, 10/1/98)
1837 Nov 8, Mount Holyoke
Seminary, the 1st US college exclusively for women, opened in South
Hadley, Massachusetts.
(AP, 11/8/00)
1838 Aug 23, One of the first
colleges for women, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley,
Mass., graduated its first students.
(AP, 8/23/97)
1839 Mar 23, 1st recorded use of
"OK" [oll korrect] was in Boston's Morning Post.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1839 Nov 27, The American
Statistical Association was founded in Boston.
(AP, 11/27/97)
1840 The whaling ship Lydia, was
built in Rochester, Mass. In 1978 sewer construction along the southern
Embarcadero of SF unearthed the Lydia.
(SFC, 8/5/05, p.F2)
1840 The ship General Harrison was
built in Newbury Port., Mass. It sailed the Horn to SF and burned up in
the 1851 SF fire. Remains were uncovered in 2001.
(SFC, 9/8/01, p.A11)
1841 Mar 8, Oliver Wendell Holmes
Jr. (d.1935), Supreme Court Justice, the "Great Dissenter," was born in
Boston. "To have doubted one's own first principles, is the mark of a
civilized man."
(AP, 3/8/98)(HN, 3/8/98)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(AP,
3/6/00)
1841 William Whitfield, captain of
the whaling ship John Howland, from Fairhaven, Mass., picked up 5
castaways from Japan’s Torishima Island, including a boy named Manjiro,
who returned with Whitfield to Fairhaven. Manjiro later returned to
Japan, and translated Nathaniel Bowditch’s “The New American
Navigator,” known to mariners as the “seaman’s bible.” In 1854 Manjiro
acted as interpreter with Commodore Perry and in 1860 joined the 1st
Japanese embassy to America.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.66)
1842 Mar 3, 1st US child labor law
regulating working hours was passed in Massachusetts.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1842 Nov 17, A grim abolitionist
meeting was held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment
under the Fugitive Slave Bill (1793) of a mulatto named George Latimer,
one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts.
Four hundred dollars was collected to buy his freedom, and plans to
storm the jail were prepared as an alternative to secure his release.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1843 Dec 4, Manila paper (made
from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 The Fruitlands utopia in
rural Massachusetts was begun by Bronson Alcott, his wife Abby,
Englishman Charles Lane and others. Members called themselves the
Consociate Family. It was marked by anti-materialistic credos,
anti-hierarchical family structures, home-schooling and a vegan diet.
Louisa May Alcott later recalled her experiences there in "Little
Women."
(SFC, 12/7/99, p.C1)(ON, 7/03, p.11)
1844 Jan 30, Richard Theodore
Greener became the first African American to graduate from Harvard
University.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1844 Apr 4, Charles Bulfinch (80),
1st US professional architect (Mass State House), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1844 Henry David Thoreau
translated the Lotus Sutra from French to English and published it in
the Transcendentalist journal Dial..
(SSFC, 7/8/01, p.B5)
1845 Jul 4, American writer Henry
David Thoreau began his 26 month experiment in simple living at Walden
Pond, near Concord, Mass. He chose this day to move to a rustic hut in
the peace and quiet of Walden Pond. He doubted that there was a spot in
Massachusetts where one could not hear a train whistle. The Fitchburg
trains passed Walden Pond about a hundred rods south of his cabin. He
lived there until September 6, 1947. His writings about his thoughts
and experiences there are still read and remembered by millions around
the world. "I went to the woods because I wished to see if I could not
learn what it [life] had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.76) (NOHY, Weiner, 3/90,
p.53)(AP, 7/4/97)(IB, 12/7/98)
1845 In Boston the Eastern Hotel
became the first building heated by steam. Radiators were used.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)
1845 Boston outlawed bathing
unless it was done under a doctor’s orders.
(WSJ, 12/11/02, p.B1)
1846 Feb 21, Sarah G. Bagley
became the first female telegrapher, taking charge at the newly opened
telegraph office in Lowell, Mass.
(AP, 2/21/00)
1846 Jun 27, New York City and
Boston were linked by telegraph wires.
(AP, 6/27/07)
1846 Aug 14, Henry David Thoreau
was jailed for tax resistance.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1846 Sep 10, Elias Howe of
Spencer, Mass., received a patent for his first workable lockstitch
sewing machine. Howe, a Massachusetts machinist, developed his sewing
machine in 1843-45 and patented it in 1846. Although Howe's machine
sewed only short, straight lines, tailors and seamstresses saw it as a
threat to their jobs. Unable to market his machine in America, Howe
took it to Britain where he sold the rights to an English manufacturer
in 1847. Upon his return to the United States, Howe discovered that his
patent had been infringed upon by other sewing machine manufacturers,
such as Isaac Singer. After a lengthy court battle, Howe's patent was
upheld and royalties from sewing machine sales made him a wealthy man.
(CFA, '96, p.54)(AP, 9/10/97)(HNPD, 7/9/98)
1846 Sep 30, Dentist William
Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in
Boston, (Charleston) Massachusetts.
(AP, 9/30/97)(HN, 9/30/01)
1846 Oct 16, Sulphurous ether was
first administered in public at the Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston by dentist Dr. William Thomas Green Morton during an operation
performed by Dr. John Collins Warren. Morton was the 1st to take public
credit for the use of ether in a medical procedure and applied for a
patent on its use, which was later nullified. In 2001 Julie M. Fenster
authored “Ether Day,” an account of Dr. Morton and ether. [see Sep 30]
(HN, 10/16/98)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A17)
1847 Sep 6, Henry David Thoreau
left Walden Pond and moved back into town, to Concord, Massachusetts.
(HN, 9/6/00)
1847 Oct 1, Maria Mitchell (29),
American astronomer living on Nantucket Island, discovered a new comet
that was named after herself. In 1848 she was elected to the American
Academy of Arts, the first woman to be so honored. Frederick VI, the
King of Denmark awarded her a gold medal for her discovery.
(HN, 10/1/98)(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1848 Jan 26, Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) of Massachusetts presented an essay at the Concord Lyceum
that explained his motives for refusing to pay taxes. In 1849 it was
published as “Resistance to Civil Government.”
(ON, 10/09, p.12)
1848 Feb 15, Sarah Roberts was
barred from a white school in Boston.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1848 Nov 23, The Female Medical
Educational Society was established in Boston, Mass., the same year the
all-male American Medical Association formed.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1848 Samuel Gregory, a pioneer in
medical education for women, founded the Boston Female Medical School.
The school opened with an enrollment of 12 students. The establishment
merged 26 years later with the Boston University School of Medicine, to
form one of the first coed medical schools in the world.
(HNQ, 12/27/02)
1849 Mar 7, Horticulturist Luther
Burbank was born in Lancaster, Mass.
(AP, 3/7/98)
1849 Nov 23, Harvard chemistry
Prof. John Webster murdered Dr. George Parkman. In 1991 Simon Schama
authored “Dead Certainties,” which chronicled the murder and trial, in
which Webster was convicted and sentenced to hanging. Dental
identification played a key role in the trial.
(WSJ, 11/10/07,
p.W8)(http://jimfisher.edinboro.edu/forensics/webster1.html)
1849 Henry David Thoreau published
“A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.” It described a camping
trip made with his brother in 1839.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Week_on_the_Concord_and_Merrimack_Rivers)
1850 Apr 20, Daniel Chester French
(d.1931), sculptor, was born. He had his estate in Stockbridge, Mass.
His work included the Lincoln Memorial and the Minute Man. His
Chesterwood estate became a museum with an annual 6-month summer
season. [413-298-3579]
(HN, 4/20/98)(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A20)
1850 Aug 23, The 1st national
women's rights convention convened in Worcester, Mass.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1850 Sep 18, Congress passed the
second Fugitive Slave Bill into law (the first was enacted in 1793) as
part of Compromise of 1850. It allowed slave owners to reclaim slaves
who had escaped to other states. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 set
fines up to $1,000 for facilitating a slave’s flight.
(AP, 9/18/97)(HN, 9/18/98)(WSJ, 1/30/03, p.D8)(AH,
10/02, p.50)
1850 Marshall Field (16) started
working a dry goods clerk in Pittsfield, Mass. In 1855 he moved to
Chicago. In 1947 John Tebbel authored "The Marshall Fields: A Study in
Wealth." In 2002 Axel Madsen authored "The Marshall Fields: The
Evolution of an American Business Dynasty."
(WSJ, 10/9/02, p.D8)
1850s John Augustus of Boston
persuaded the courts to release young offenders into his custody
instead of sending them to prison. This was the start of the
practice of probation.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, Z1p.2)
1851 Feb 15, Black abolitionists
invaded a Boston courtroom to rescue a fugitive slave.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1851 Nov
11, Alvan Clark of Cambridge, Massachusetts, patented a telescope.
Clark, a portrait painter interested in astronomy, had made several
small lenses and mirrors as a hobby. The fact that he could detect the
small residual errors in one of the best lenses Europe could offer
convinced him that he could make them as well. After he gained a
reputation in Europe the American orders started to come in. The Alvin
Clark Company became one of the foremost producers of some of the
largest lenses for telescopes in the 1800's.
(www.todayinsci.com/)
1851 Dec 29, The first American
Young Men's Christian Assn. was organized, in Boston.
(AP, 12/29/97)
1851 The MassMutual Financial
Group was begun in Massachusetts. The 2005 the company employed 27,000
people and managed assets of $350 billion.
(WSJ, 8/19/05, p.A1)
1852 May 18, Massachusetts ruled
that all school-age children must attend school.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1852 Aug 3, In the 1st
intercollegiate rowing race, Harvard beats Yale by 4 lengths.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1852 Oct 24, Daniel Webster (70),
lawyer, speaker and senator from Massachusetts, died. In 1997 Robert V.
Remini wrote his biography: "Daniel Webster."
(WSJ, 9/30/97, p.A20)(MC, 10/24/01)
1852 Dec 29, Emma Snodgrass was
arrested in Boston for wearing pants.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1852 Anson Burlingame was elected
to the Mass. legislature.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1852 Smith & Wesson founded
its business in Springfield, Mass. Horace Smith, a toolmaker, and
Daniel Wesson, a former apprenticed gunsmith, combined their skills to
produce a revolutionary handgun.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A20)(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.F3)
1853 Mar 5, Arthur W. Foote,
organist, composer (Suite for Strings in E), was born in Salem, Mass.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1853 In Boston Sarah Parker Remond
was thrown out of a theater for refusing to be seated in an area
reserved for blacks. She fell and filed suit and was awarded monetary
compensation. The theater was later desegregated.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.5)
1854 Aug 9, Henry David Thoreau
published "Walden," in which he described his experiences while living
near Walden Pond on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.44)(AP, 8/9/97)
1854 Nov 13, George Whitfield
Chadwick, composer, was born in Lowell Mass.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1854 The New England Emigrant Aid
Society was created to colonize Kansas with Northern abolitionists. The
Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society, founded by Eli Thayer of Worcester,
Massachusetts, promoted the settlement of anti-slavery groups in
Kansas, with the ultimate objective of making it a free state. Adhering
to the cause of "popular sovereignty," the organization-which was
reincorporated in February, 1855 as the New England Emigrant Aid
Company-founded the town of Lawrence and other Free State communities.
Active into 1857, it helped settle some 2,000 people in Kansas.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.W10)(HNQ, 10/5/99)
1855 May 3, Macon B. Allen became
the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1855 Dwight L. Moody, Biblicist
and later founder of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, embraced
Jesus as his personal savior in a Boston shoe store.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A1)
1855 Oct 9, Joshua Stoddard of
Worcester, Mass., patented the 1st calliope.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Anderson Preserve Co.
incorporated. It sold Boston Market Catsup throughout the US.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.E4)
1856 May 20, Massachusetts Senator
Charles Sumner (d.1874), an outspoken antagonist against slavery, gave
the "Crime Against Kansas" speech. [see May 22] Sumner, born on January
6, 1811, helped form the Republican Party.
(HNQ, 7/7/99)
1856 May 22, Massachusetts Senator
Charles Sumner was assaulted on the Senate floor by South Carolina’s
Preston Brooks. Representative Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from
South Carolina, used a cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, a
Republican abolitionist from Mass. Sumner was beaten unconscious and
was unable to resume duties for 3 years. Brooks resigned from his seat
but was re-elected. Sumner's injuries in the attack compelled his
absence from the Senate until December, 1859.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A6)(HNQ, 7/7/99)
1858 Feb 21, Edwin T. Holmes
installed the 1st electric burglar alarm in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1858 Oct 15, John L. Sullivan,
heavyweight boxing champ (1882-92), was born in Mass.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1859 Jul 12, William Goodale
patented a paper bag manufacturing machine in Mass.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1859 In Plymouth construction
began on an 81-foot tall monument to the Pilgrims and their virtues:
"Law, Education Freedom and Morality."
(AM, 11/00, p.17)
1859 John Augustus, Boston
businessman, died. He had instituted a practice called probation and
helped spare some 2,000 convicted offenders from prison sentences. In
1891 the Mass. state legislature established the 1st official judicial
probation system. In 1925 the US Congress passed the National Probation
Act.
(ON, 5/02, p.5)
1860 Feb 22, Shoe-making workers
of Lynn, Mass, struck successfully for higher wages. The strike in Lynn
and Natick, Massachusetts, spread throughout New England and involved
20,000 workers. The strike was for higher wages and included women. The
workers won their major demands.
(HNQ, 8/3/98)(MC, 2/22/02)
1860 Jul 25, The 1st US
intercollegiate billiard match was between Harvard and Yale.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1860 Oct 13, The 1st US aerial
photo was taken from a balloon over Boston.
(HFA, ‘96, p.40)(MC, 10/13/01)
1860 Cornelius Felton (1807-1862),
professor of Greek literature, succeeded James Walker as president of
Harvard.
(www.nndb.com/people/711/000107390/)
1860 Milton Bradley started a
lithograph company in Springfield, Mass. In 1866 Bradley launched the
board-game industry in North America with “The Checkered Game of Life,”
which innovated on earlier representations of life as a board game. By
1880 he expanded into manufacturing jigsaw puzzles. Hasbro bought
Milton Bradley in 1992.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life)(SFC,
6/11/08, p.G3)
1861 Feb 22, Edward Weston left
Boston on a bet to walk to Lincoln's inauguration.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1861 Pres. Lincoln appointed Anson
Burlingame, congressman from Mass., as ambassador to China.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1862 Feb 26, Cornelius Felton
(b.1807), president of Harvard Univ., died in Chester, Pen., after 2
years in office.
(WSJ, 2/21/06,
p.A3)(www.nndb.com/people/711/000107390/)
1862 Apr 21, Ellen Price Wood's
"East Lynne," premiered in Boston.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1862 May, Henry David Thoreau
(44), American writer, died of tuberculosis. In 1999 his unfinished
manuscript "Wild Fruits," a catalog of his observations on local plants
and fruits, was published.
(WP, 1952, p.42)(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A3)
1863 May 28, The 54th
Massachusetts, the first black regiment from the North, left Boston
headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina, to fight in the Civil War.
(AP, 5/28/97)(HN, 5/28/99)
1864 Mar 1, Rebecca Lee
(1831-1895) became the first black woman to receive an American medical
degree, from the New England Female Medical College in Boston.
(AP,
3/1/00)(www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_73.html)
1865 Feb 20, MIT was formed as the
1st US collegiate architectural school.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1865 Jul 8, C.E. Barnes of Lowell,
MA, patented the machine gun.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1865 Dec 26, James H. Nason
(Mason) of Franklin, Mass., received a patent for a coffee percolator.
(AP, 12/26/97)(MC, 12/26/01)
1865 The Dante Club formed in
Boston to help Henry Wadsworth Longfellow complete the 1st top-notch
English translation of Dante’s "Inferno."
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.M6)
1866 Jul 10, The Indelible pencil
was patented by Edson P. Clark of Northampton, Mass.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1866 The Boston Yacht Club was
founded.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T7)
1868 Feb 23, William Edward
Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. W.E.B.
Du Bois was the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard
University. As a sociologist, he focused on the problem of race for
blacks in the United States. He became an influential leader of black
Americans, presenting an alternative to Booker T. Washington, whose
policies Du Bois considered too conservative and too accommodating to
whites. Du Bois, believing that blacks could achieve progress only
through protest, encouraged black nationalism and supported
Pan-Africanism. He founded the National Negro Committee which
eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. Du Bois also founded the Niagara Movement, served as
the NAACP's director of research and editor of its magazine Crisis, and
taught and published his philosophy at Atlanta University from
1896-1910. In 1961 he renounced his American citizenship and spent his
last remaining years in the West African country of Ghana. W.E.B. Du
Bois died in Accra, Ghana August 27, 1963 at the age of 95.
(HNPD, 2/23/99)(HNQ, 5/11/99)
1868 Louisa May Alcott (d.1888)
authored "Little Women," while living in Concord, Mass. In 1998 "Little
Women" premiered in Houston as an opera by Mark Adomo.
(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A12)(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.E2)
1869 Aug 17, Oxford beat Harvard
on the Thames River in the 1st international boat race.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1869 Oct 16, A hotel in Boston
became the 1st to have indoor plumbing.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1870 Feb 23, Anton Burlingame,
former Mass., legislator, former US ambassador to China and current
Chinese diplomat, died in Russia. He was returned to Boston for burial.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1870 George Grant (d.1910) became
the 1st black graduate from Harvard Dental School. He got the 1st
patent for a golf tee in 1899.
(ST, 2/20/04, p.C1)
1871 Aug 26, The Boston Revere
Railroad Depot collision left 32 people dead on a single track railroad
with no telegraph communications.
(THC, 12/2/97)
1872 Nov 9, Fire destroyed nearly
800 buildings in Boston.
(AP, 11/9/08)
1872 In Cambridge, Mass., the
Metaphysical Club was founded as a discussion group and included Oliver
Wendall Holmes, Charles Sanders Pierce, William James and Chauncy
Wright. In 2001 Louis Menand authored "The Metaphysical Club: A Story
of ideas in America," which traced the American development of
pragmatism.
(SSFC, 6/10/01, DB p.70)(SFC, 6/15/01, p.C15)
1873 May 8, Melvil Dewey (d.1931)
presented the 1st draft of his decimal classification system to the
Amherst College Library Committee. [see 1876]
(ON, 3/04, p.12)
1873 May 12, The penny postal
card, issued by the Post Office Department, was first put on sale in
Springfield, Mass., and in other cities a day later.
(www.dailymail.com/static/specialsections/lookingback/lb0201.htm)
1873 Boston, Mass., established a
mounted police unit, the first such unit in the country. The unit was
disbanded in 2009 due to budget cuts.
(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
1873 Lydia Pynkham developed and
began to produce and sell the Lydia Pynkham Vegetable Compound for
problems that ailed women in Marblehead, Mass.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A10)
1875 Oct 25, Tchaikovsky’s 1st
Piano Concerto premiered in Boston.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1876 Feb 15, A historic Elm at
Boston was blown down.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1876 Mar 10, Alexander Graham Bell
made what was, in effect, the first telephone call. He found a
way of converting words into electrical current and back again and sent
his first message using his new variable-liquid resistance transmitter.
Bell's telephone caused the current to vary smoothly in proportion to
the pressure created on a microphone by human speech and got a patent.
His assistant, in an adjoining room in Boston, heard Bell say over the
experimental device: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."
(I&I, Penzias, p.97)(CFA, '96, p.42)(SFEM,
1/11/98, p.12) (AP, 3/10/98) (HN, 3/10/98)
1876 Apr 1, The first
official NL baseball game took place. Boston beat Philadelphia
6-5.
(OTD)
1876 Jul 31, US Coast Guard
officers' training school was established at New Bedford, MA.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1876 Dec 5, Daniel Stillson (Mass)
patented the 1st practical pipe wrench.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 The Moxie Nerve Food Co.
introduced a medicine to be taken with a spoon. The medicine was later
changed to a carbonated drink, produced in Salem, Mass. Moxie produced
a lot of items for advertising that became valuable as collectibles.
(SFC, 7/15/98, Z1 p.3)
1876 Melvil Louis Dewey (b.1851),
Amherst College librarian, published the 1st edition of the “Dewey
Decimal System.” He had created "A Classification and Subject Index for
Cataloguing and arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library" using
his Dewey Decimal System. [see May 8, 1873]
(HN, 12/10/98)(SSFC, 4/14/02, p.C18)(ON, 3/04, p.12)
1877 Feb 12, The 1st news dispatch
by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1877 Albert Pope founded his Pope
Manufacturing Co. in Boston, Mass. He started making tricycles in 1883.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.G3)
1878 May 24, The first American
bicycle race was held in Boston.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1878 Sep 1, Emma M. Nutt became
the first female telephone operator in the United States, for the
Telephone Despatch Co. of Boston.
(AP, 9/1/03)
1878 Thomas Gold Appleton, poet,
artist and scion of one of Boston’s first families, published his essay
“The Kingdom of the Common-Place,” in which he argued that New
Englanders must reconcile themselves to “the fatal poison” of modernity.
(WSJ, 11/9/05, p.D16)
1878 Danvers State Hospital opened
in Danvers, Mass. It closed in 1992. In 2005 AvalonBay purchased the
property and planned to turn it into apartments.
(WSJ, 7/27/05, p.B4)
1879 Radcliffe College was
established as the "Harvard Annex" for women who were denied access to
Harvard. Its name was changed to Radcliffe in 1894 in honor of Ann
Radcliffe.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A2)
1879 Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910),
founded the Church of Christ, Science.
(WSJ, 9/26/03, p.W17)
1880 Francis W. Parker (d.1902 at
64), a pioneer in progressive elementary education, became supervisor
of the Boston school system and later established the Chicago
Institute. He experimented with methods while teaching in various
places during the American Civil War in an attempt to change the
prevailing rigidity of U.S. schools. He later went to Germany in 1872
where he studied educational methods in use there. Upon returning, he
became school superintendent for Quincy, Massachusetts, where he
introduced science, arts and crafts into the curriculum. Parker
stressed children‘s individuality and promoted self-expression,
socialized activity and a more informal atmosphere. An endowment
enabled him to establish the Chicago Institute in 1899.
(HNQ, 9/6/00)
1881 Aug 12, Cecil B. DeMille
(d.1959), pioneering motion picture director, was born in Mass. Before
becoming a household name in the early days of movie-making, he
attended the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts and in 1900 began
working on plays with his older brother William. The director, producer
and screenwriter was most famous for his movie "The Ten Commandments."
(HNPD, 8/12/98)(HN, 8/12/98)(SC, 8/12/02)
1881 Oct 22, Boston
Symphony Orchestra gave its 1st concert.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/BSO.htm)
1881 A Massachusetts lighthouse
was erected in Wellfleet. It was later moved by the Coast Guard from
Wellfleet to Yerba Buena, Calif., and to Point Montara, Ca., in 1928.
(AP, 6/5/08)(SFC, 6/14/08, p.B2)
1882 Dec 11, Boston's Bijou
Theatre, the first American playhouse to be lighted exclusively by
electricity, gave its first performance: Gilbert and Sullivan's
"Iolanthe, Or The Peer and the Peri."
(AP, 12/11/08)
1883 Feb 28, 1st US vaudeville
theater opened in Boston.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1883 The W.S. Reed Co. of
Leominster, Mass., produced a couple of cast-iron mechanical banks,
that never made it to mass production. One sold at auction in 1998 for
$426,000.
(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W12)
1884 Mar 27, The first
long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York City.
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1884 Aug 4, Thomas Stevens
(1853-1935) arrived in Boston after 104 days from SF in the 1st bicycle
trip to cross the US. He later continued around world (2 yrs 9 mos) on
a trip financed with articles for "Outing and the Wheelman" magazine.
(MC, 4/22/02)(ON, 9/03, p.12)
1884 Charles Eliot, president of
Harvard, captured the prevailing impatience with the old-fashioned
curriculum: Are our men being educated for the work of the twentieth
century of the seventeenth."
(WSJ, 1/28/02, p.A13)
1884 Episcopalian Rev. Endicott
Peabody founded the Groton School in Massachusetts. He was backed by
affluent figures of the time, such as the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, the
Rev. William A. Lawrence, William Crowninshield Endicott, J.P. Morgan,
and his father, Samuel Endicott Peabody. Peabody received pledges of
$39,000 for the construction of a schoolhouse, if an additional $40,000
could be raised as an endowment.
(WSJ, 1/6/07,
p.P13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groton_School)
1885 Apr 30, Boston Pops Orchestra
formed.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1885 May 19, First mass production
of shoes (Jan Matzeliger in Lynn, Massachusetts).
(DT, 5/19/97)
1885 The Concord, Mass., public
library banned "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.
(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)
1885-1920 Sisters Frances and Mary Allen of
Deerfield, Massachusetts, began their careers as schoolteachers, but
when deafness forced a change of profession, they turned to
photography. Their work shows everyday activities in a rural
community. Self-taught in their craft, the Allen sisters achieved
remarkable success. During their photography career from 1885 to 1920,
their work appeared in numerous books and magazines as covers,
illustrations and frontispieces.
(HNPD, 1/3/00)
1886 Mar 6, The 1st US alternating
current power plant started in Great Barrington, MA.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1886 May 15, Poet Emily Dickinson
(b.1830) died in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for
the previous 24 years. In 2001 Alfred Habegger authored her biography:
"My Wars Are laid Away in Books." In 2008 Brenda Wineapple authored
“White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth
Higginson (1823-1911).
(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/01)(WSJ, 11/2/01,
p.W11)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.96)
1887 Sep 16, Nadia Boulanger
(d.1979), conductor, was born in Paris, France. She became the 1st
woman to conduct Boston Symphony (1939).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Boulanger)(www.glbtq.com/arts/boulanger_n.html)
1888 Mar 6, Louisa May Alcott
(1832) died just hours after the burial of her father. Her novels
included "Little Women" (1868). In 1998 "Little Women" premiered in
Houston as an opera by Mark Adomo.
(HN, 3/6/01)(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A12)
1888 Sep 6, Joseph P. Kennedy,
Boston Mass, diplomat, father of JFK, RFK & Teddy, was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1888 In Massachusetts the Searles
Castle was built in Great Barrington on commission by Mary Hopkins
(d.1891), the widow of railroad tycoon Mark Hopkins. Its seven turrets
and blue dolomite exterior created a 60,000-square-foot fortress at the
end of Main Street. Mary Hopkins hired noted interior decorator Edward
Searles for the project, and the two married a year before it was
finished. In 2007 it sold for $15 million.
(AP, 5/19/07)
1889 Jun 28, Maria Mitchell
(b.1818), American astronomer, died in Lynn, Mass.
(ON, 2/07, p.10)
1890 Mar 18, The 1st US state
naval militia was organized in Massachusetts.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1891 Nov 10, The 1st Woman's
Christian Temperance Union meeting was held in Boston.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1891 The Canadian, Dr. James B.
Naismith, sports figure, inventor, teacher, invented the game of
basketball at the YMCA in Springfield, Mass. A janitor provided peach
baskets instead of the requested boxes.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.126)(DT internet 11/28/97)
1892 Jan 15, The rules of
basketball were published for the first time, in Springfield, Mass.,
where the game originated.
(AP, 1/15/00)
1892 Aug 4, Lizzie Borden’s father
and stepmother, Andrew and Abby Durfee Gray Borden, were killed with an
ax in Fall River, Mass. Based on strong circumstantial evidence, Sunday
school teacher Lizzie (32), Andrew Borden's daughter from a previous
marriage, was charged and acquitted of the murders by an all-male jury.
Later an opera titled "Lizzie Borden" by Jack Beeson drew a portrait of
family pathology that depicted her as guilty of the crime.
(WSJ,3/13/95, p.A-13)(AP, 8/4/97)(SFC, 9/17/97,
p.A16)(HNPD, 8/4/98)
1892 Sep 8, An early version of
"The Pledge of Allegiance" appeared in "The Youth’s Companion,"
published in Boston and edited by Francis Bellamy, a Christian
socialist, and cousin of writer Edward Bellamy. James Upham (d.1906),
Bellamy’s supervisor, collaborated on the pledge. Frank E. Bellamy
(1876-1915) of Cherryvale High School in Kansas had authored a 500-word
patriotic essay which included the words of the Pledge of Allegiance
and instructions on saluting the American Flag. His teacher entered the
"Salute to the Flag" in a contest sponsored by the popular scholastic
publication The Youth's Companion. His essay won first place in this
national school contest. [see Oct 12]
(AP, 9/8/97)(SSFC, 6/30/02,
p.A3)(www.leatherockhotel.com/FrankBellamy.htm)(WSJ, 7/6/04, p.A23)
1893 Jun 20, A jury in New
Bedford, Mass., found Lizzie Borden innocent of the ax murders of her
father and stepmother.
(AP, 6/20/97)
1893 Aug 12, Howard Smith, actor
(Harvey Griffin-Hazel), was born in Attleboro, Mass.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1893 Sep 22, Bicycle makers
Charles and Frank Duryea showed off the first American automobile
produced for sale to the public by taking it on a maiden run through
the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts.
(HN, 9/22/00)
1893 The first automobile license
plates were issued this year in Paris, France. The first American
city to require drivers to be licensed and register their vehicle was
Boston a few years later.
(HNQ, 7/18/00)
1893-1924 Henry Cabot Lodge was the Republican
senator from Massachusetts.
(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-6)
1894 May 14, Fire in Boston
bleachers spread to 170 adjoining buildings.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1894 Jul 25, Walter Brennan,
actress (Real McCoys, At Gun Point), was born in Swampscott, Mass.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1894 Dec 17, Arthur Fiedler,
conductor (Boston Pops), was born in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1895 Feb 9, Volleyball was
invented by W.G. Morgan in Massachusetts. A game called "mintonette"
was created by William George Morgan, physical director at the YMCA in
Holyoke, Mass., to accommodate players who thought basketball was too
strenuous. The objective was to hit a basketball over a rope. It was
the predecessor to volleyball.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.C4)(HNQ, 11/26/99)(MC, 2/9/02)
1895 Apr 24, Joshua Slocum
(1844-1909), a Canadian-American sailor, began a voyage around the
world from Boston in a 37-foot rebuilt fishing boat called the Spray.
He ended on Jun 27, 1898, at Newport, Rhode Island. His record was not
beaten until 1938. In 1899 Slocum authored "Sailing Alone Around the
World."
(www.millicentlibrary.org/slocum.htm)(WSJ, 3/9/00,
p.A27)(WSJ, 6/21/08, p.W8)
1895 Jul 4, The words to "America
the Beautiful" appeared for the first time in "The Congregationalist",
a Boston magazine; the author was Katherine Lee Bates (1819-1910), a
Wellesley professor, who penned it in 1893. It has often been suggested
that this song be adopted as the national anthem of the US since it is
easier to sing than the "The Star Spangled Banner." In 1904 Clarence
Barbour adapted it to the melody of Samuel Ward’s “Materna” (1890).
Bates’ final version was completed in 1911. In 2001 Lynn Sherr authored
"America the Beautiful."
(WSJ, 9/28/01, p.W13)(SSFC, 10/21/01, Par p.8)(AH,
10/04, p.26)
1895 George Henderson founded
Dorchester Pottery outside Boston. Charles A. Hill, his brother-in-law,
was the plant manager and decorator. It went out of business in 1979.
(SFC, 6/17/98, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 12/26/07, p.G3)
1896 Oct 30, Ruth Gordon, actress
(Rosemary's Baby, Harold & Maude), was born in Mass.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1897 Apr 19, The first Boston
Marathon was run from Ashland, Mass., to Boston. Winner John J.
McDermott ran the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1897 Sep 1, The first section of
Boston’s subway system was opened. The Park St. Station in Boston was
the nation’s first subway station. The Boylston Street subway opened in
1897.
(AP, 9/1/97)(BS, 5/3/98, p.5R)(HNQ, 5/17/99)
1898 Feb 8, John Ames Sherman
patented the 1st envelope folding & gumming machine in Mass.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1898 Nov 26, SS Portland, a
280-foot side-wheeler, left Boston for Cape Cod. A major storm arose
that killed over 400 people in the next 36 hours. [see Nov 27]
(MC, 11/26/01)(AH, 6/02, p.53)
1898 Nov 27, The SS Portland,
under Capt. Hollis H. Blanchard, sank in the Portland Gale and all 157
[192] people aboard were killed.
(MC, 11/26/01)(AH, 6/02, p.55)
1898 Frederick Law Olmsted
(d.1903), the architect of Central Park in NYC, was confined to the
McLean Asylum in Waverly, Mass., for dementia. He had earlier designed
the grounds for the asylum.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W5)
1899 May 24, The 1st US auto
repair shop opened in Boston.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1899 Dec 12, George F. Bryant of
Boston patented the wooden golf tee.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1899 In Cambridge the Semitic
Museum of Harvard Univ. was founded.
(AM, 7/97, p.68)
1900 Aug 17, Quincy Howe,
newscaster (CBS Weekend News), was born in Boston, Mass.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1900 Aug 23, Booker T. Washington
formed the National Negro Business League in Boston, Massachusetts.
(HN, 8/23/98)
1900 Oct 15, Boston’s Symphony
Hall, one of the world's most highly regarded concert halls, was
inaugurated. It was the 1st to be built in known conformity with
acoustical laws described by Harvard physicist Wallace Sabine.
(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/BSO.htm)(WSJ, 4/24/02,
p.D9)
1900 Nov 18, Dr. Howard Thurman,
theologian and first African American to hold a full time position at
Boston University, was born.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1901 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft
Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901 baseball
season as a major league and would not renew its membership in the
National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore and
Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The league
would also invade 4 cities where National League teams existed: Boston,
Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter teams included: the
Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland
Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and
Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09,
p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
1901 Apr 5, Chester Bowles,
ambassador, writer (Conscience of a Liberal), was born in Mass.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1901 Sep 3, Miss Ellen Stone, a
Protestant missionary from Haverhill, Mass., was kidnapped in Bulgaria
by a Macedonian revolutionary gang, who demanded $110,000 in gold.
Katerina Tsilka, her pregnant Bulgarian companion, was also kidnapped
and gave birth during her captivity to a baby girl. In 2003 Teresa
Carpenter authored "The Miss Stone Affair: America's First Modern
Hostage Crisis."
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.M4)
1901 Edith Wharton purchased 113
acres in Lenox, Mass., and built The Mount. The Berkshire Hills house,
modeled on a 17th century design by Christopher Wren, was her first
laboratory for experiments in architecture and interior design.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.A42)(WSJ, 9/13/02, p.W11)
1901 The Indian Motorcycle
Manufacturing Co. of Springfield, Mass., produced the first
commercially marketed gasoline-powered bike in the US. The last Indian
motorcycle was made in 1953. A 2nd generation of the company started up
in 1998 but folded in 2002.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W14)(SFC, 7/27/04, p.D1)
1902 Jan 1, The L Street Brownies
swim club began diving into South Boston’s Carson Beach in what became
an annual affair.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A3)
1902 Aug 23, Fanny Farmer, among
the first to emphasize the relationship of diet to health, opened her
School of Cookery in Boston.
(HN, 8/23/00)
1903 Oct 13, Boston defeated
Pittsburgh in baseball’s first World Series. In 2003 Roger I. Abrams
authored "The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903;"
Louis P. Masur authored "Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series;"
and Bob Ryan authored "When Boston Won the World Series."
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A8)(HN, 10/13/98)(WSJ, 3/28/03,
p.W9)(SSFC, 6/8/03, p.M6)
1903-1906 The United Shoe Manufacturing Plant was
built. It was pioneering reinforced concrete structure in Beverly,
Mass., devised by the engineer Ernest L. Ransome. He patented a way to
embed twisted square iron rods in concrete.
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A16)
1904 Jan 10, Ray Bolger, actor,
dancer (Scarecrow-Wizard of Oz), was born in Dorchester, Mass.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1904 Mar 2, Theodor Seuss Geisel
[Dr. Seuss] was born in Springfield, Mass. He was the Pulitzer
Prize-winning author of "The Cat in the Hat," "Green Eggs and Ham,"
"The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" and other children's books.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)(HN, 3/2/99)(SSFC, 5/26/02,
Par p.8)
1904 May 5, Denton True "Cy" Young
of the Boston Red Sox pitched the first perfect game against the
Philadelphia Athletics in Boston.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)
1904 Jul 18, Hiram Washington
Hayden (b.1820), American inventor, died in Massachusetts. In 1851 he
had patented a design for brass kettles.
(SFC, 6/11/08, p.G3)(http://tinyurl.com/5trd82)
1904 Nov 4, Harvard Stadium became
the 1st stadium built specifically for football.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1904 The Newburyport Silver Co.
was founded in Newburyport, Mass. In 1905 it move to Keene, New
Hampshire. The operation closed in 1914.
(SFC, 7/26/06, p.G2)
1905 Feb 16, 1st US Esperanto club
was organized in Boston. Dr. Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof (1859-1917), a
Polish ophthalmologist, invented the artificial language in 1885.
(MC, 2/16/02)(SFCM, 6/8/03, p.18)
1906 Dec 24, Canadian physicist
Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music
program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.
(AP, 12/24/97)
1907 Nov 28, Future movie producer
Louis B. Mayer opened his first movie theater, in Haverhill, Mass.
(AP, 11/28/07)
1907 Whiting & Davis Co. of
Plainville, Mass., established in 1896, developed a chain mail mesh
machine about this time and became the world’s largest manufacturer of
mesh products.
(SFC, 7/11/07,
p.G4)(http://bagladyemporium.com/BLU/index.php?n=Main.WhitingDavisCo)
1908 Apr 12, Fire devastated the
city of Chelsea, Massachusetts.
(AP, 4/12/08)
1908 Jun 29, American composer
Leroy Anderson (d.1975), known for light orchestral pieces such as "The
Typewriter" and "The Syncopated Clock," was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP,
6/29/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Anderson)
1908 Jul 2,
Thurgood Marshall (d.1993), first African-American US Supreme Court
Justice, was born in Baltimore. He served on the US Supreme Court from
1967-1991. As a civil rights lawyer in the 1950s he maintained a
confidential relationship with the FBI.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A3)(HN, 7/2/98)(AP, 7/2/08)
1908 Mary Baker Eddy founded the
Christian Science Monitor in Boston.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.A17)
1908 The Harvard Graduate School
of Business Administration was established (the world's first MBA
program) with a faculty of 15, 33 regular students, and 47 special
students.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.68)(www.hbs.edu/about/history.html)
1909 Apr 1, Eddie Duchin, society
pianist, bandleader (Eddie Duchin Orch), was born in Mass.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1909 Sigmund Freud‘s only visit to
the United States was to accept an honorary degree at Clark University
in 1909. G. Stanley Hall, the president of the university in Worcester,
Massachusetts, had invited Freud to "[set] forth your own views" in a
series of lectures at a conference honoring Clark‘s 20th anniversary.
Following a visit to New York City, Freud delivered five lectures at
Clark, all of them in German. He then went on to visit Niagara Falls
and the Adirondacks before returning to Europe.
(HNQ, 6/4/00)
1910 Oct 1, Mass. 1st state fair
was the Berkshire Cattle Fair in Pittsfield.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1910 The Loeb Classical Library
was founded.
(SFEC, 8/20/00, p.B12)
1911 Mar 8, Alan Hovhaness,
composer (Lousadzak, Ukiyo), was born in Somerville, Mass.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1911 Freud and Jung visited NYC as
a prelude to their lectures at Clark Univ. [see 1909]
(SFEC, 4/4/99, BR p.3)
1911 Rev. William Wolcott willed
paintings by Monet, Pissarro and 14 other artists to the Daniel White
Fund to "create and gratify a public taste for fine art, particularly
among the people of Lawrence." He requested that the paintings be
housed in a museum until a gallery was built.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A25)
1912 Jan 1, A Massachusetts law
reducing the work-week from fifty-six to fifty-four hours for women and
children, went into effect. Workers struck spontaneously on Jan 12 when
the mill owners reduced wages to coincide with the reduced work-week.
(www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/johngold.html)
1912 Jan 12, In Lawrence, Mass.,
over 20,000 textile factory workers went on strike to protest wage cuts.
(www.socialistworld.net/eng/2002/07/12history.html)
1912 Mar 24, The “Bread and Roses”
textile workers strike in Lawrence, Mass., ended. Mill owners, fearing
that government intervention and investigation would jeopardize the
high tariff on woolens, had finally agreed to bargain. Offers of pay
increases from five to twenty-five percent, time-and-a-quarter for
overtime, and no discrimination against strikers led to the end of the
strike.
(www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/johngold.html)
1912 Jun 4, Massachusetts passed
the 1st US minimum wage law.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1912 Jul 1, Drama critic Harriet
Quimby (b.1875) took a passenger up in her new Blériot monoplane
from Boston to fly over Dorchester Bay at the Harvard-Boston Aviation
Meet. As she descended for landing, the plane went into a dive and,
without seat belts, she and her passenger were thrown out into the
shallow water of the bay, where they struck the muddy bottom and were
crushed to death. Quimby was the first American to receive a pilot's
license (1911) and was the first woman to solo across the English
Channel (1912). Her interest in flight was piqued at an aviation meet
in 1910.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Quimby)(HNPD,
7/31/98)(ON, 1/00, p.11)
1912 Fenway Stadium, home of the
Boston Red sox, opened.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, p.T4)
1912-1913 Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), later
revolutionary head of Vietnam, lived in the US and worked as a baker at
the Parker House Hotel in Boston.
(SSFC, 6/15/08, p.E5)
1913 A Massachusetts state law
prohibited non-residents from getting married in the state if their
union would not be legal in their home state. The law was repealed in
2008.
(SFC, 5/19/04, p.A3)(SFC, 8/1/08, p.A4)
1914 Jul 10, The Boston Red Sox
purchased Babe Ruth (19) from the Baltimore Orioles for 30 pieces of
gold.
(Hem., 4/97, p.105)(MC, 7/10/02)
1914 Jul 11, Babe Ruth debuted in
the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox. He earned $2,900 in his
rookie season.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1915 Jan 3, Jack Levine, artist,
was born in Boston, Mass. His social realist and expressionist art
included political and satirical undertones.
(SFC, 7/24/04, p.E1)
1915 May 6, Babe Ruth made his
pitching debut with the Red Sox hit his 1st HR, but lost to Yanks 4-3
in 15 innings.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1916 Nov, Ray Conniff (d.2002),
bandleader and composer, was born in Attleboro, Mass.
(SFC, 10/19/02, p.A21)
1917 May 29, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States (1961-1963), was born
at 83 Beals St. in Brookline, Mass. He was assassinated in his first
term.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/99)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.C12)
1917 Sep 2, Cleveland Amory,
conservationist and TV reviewer (TV Guide), was born in Nahant, Mass.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1917 Edith Wharton authored the
novel "Summer." It was the story of a woman's sexual awakening. In 1999
it premiered as an opera by the Berkshire Opera Company.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.A42)
1917 In Ashland, Mass., a plant
run by various textile companies began operations. Nyanza Inc. operated
it as a dye manufacturing plant from 1965 until the company went
bankrupt in 1978. during this period Nyanza released manufacturing
waste containing such substances as mercury, chromium, lead and cadmium
into unlined lagoons and nearby streams. The site was added to the
federal Superfund list in 1983. In 2006 a 7-year study confirmed that
children who swam or waded in the water near the now-closed dye plant
ran an increased risk of cancer.
(AP, 5/11/06)
1918 May 9, Mike Wallace,
newscaster (Biography, 60 Minutes), was born in Brookline, Mass.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1918 Jul 21, The residents and
coastguardsmen of Orleans, Massachusetts, were amazed to see the German
U-boat, U-156, firing at an American tug and four barges just off shore.
(HNQ, 2/1/02)
1918 Aug 25, Leonard Bernstein,
conductor and composer who initiated the television series "Young
People's Concerts," was born in Lawrence, MA.
(WUD, 1994, p.141)(HN, 8/25/98)(MC, 8/25/02)
1918 Oct 12, The 1st use of iron
lung was at Boston's Children Hospital.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1919 Jan 15, In Boston an
explosion opened a tank of molasses and the cylindrical sides toppled
outward knocking down 10 nearby buildings. 2 million gallons of
molasses oozed onto the streets and killed 21 people. Another 50 were
injured [see 1872].
(www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/molasses.asp)
1919 May 14, The first
transatlantic flight by a U.S. Navy seaplane began at Chatham Naval Air
Station in Mass. [see May 27]
(WSJ, 9/10/99, p.W6)
1919 May 9, James Reese Europe
(b.1881), jazz band leader and founder of the NYC Clef Club, died after
he was stabbed during the intermission of a performance at Mechanic’s
Hall in Boston. Europe led the Clef Club Symphony Orchestra before WW I
and during the war led a US Army band in the all-black 369th Infantry
Regiment, which was attached to the French Army. In 1995 Reid Badger
authored “A Life in Ragtime,” a biography of Europe.
(WSJ, 11/10/05,
p.D7)(www.jass.com/Others/europe.html)
1919 May 27, The first
transatlantic flight was completed by a U.S. Navy seaplane. U.S. Navy
Curtiss flying boat NC-4, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Albert C. Read, arrived
safely in Lisbon, Portugal, to become the first aircraft to complete a
transatlantic flight. Three aircraft, designated NC-1, NC-3 and
NC-4--called "Nancy" boats--had taken off from New York's Rockaway
Naval Air Station [Chatham Naval Air Station in Mass.] for Lisbon on
May 8, with intermediate stops planned for Newfoundland and the Azores.
Only NC-4 completed the 3,925-mile transatlantic flight. Heavy rain and
fog forced NC-1 down at sea, where it sank on May 17. NC-3, came down
in rough seas and taxied 200 miles into the harbor at Horta in the
Azores.
(HN, 5/27/98)(HNPD, 5/27/99)(WSJ, 9/10/99, p.W6)
1919 Sep 9, Most of Boston's
1,500-member police force went on strike. The city’s police
commissioner fired the strikers and Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), who
was running for governor, came out in support of the firings.
(AP, 9/9/99)(AH, 6/07,
p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge)
1919 Carl Linder won the Boston
Marathon. He was rejected for military service due to flat feet.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, Z1 p.2)
1919 Charles Ponzi of Boston
hatched a scheme that defrauded thousands of investors in a
postal-coupon scam in the 1920s. He bilked investors in a scheme of
high return similar to the "520% Miller" con of 1899. He was convicted
and spent 13 years in prison and was deported to Italy in 1934.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ, 7/23/99, p.A14)(WSJ,
7/10/02, p.A8)(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1920 Jan 3, The Red Sox sold Babe
Ruth to the Yankees for $100,000, twice the amount of any previous
player transaction. The deal also included a $300,000 loan secured by a
mortgage on Fenway Park, a contractual clause that made the Yankees
owners the Red Sox's landlords.
(http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00242487.html)
1920 Jan, Calvin Coolidge in his
inaugural address as governor stated: "There is a limit to the taxing
power of the state beyond which increased rates produce decreased
revenues."
(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)
1920 Apr 15, A paymaster and his
guard at a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts, were killed in a
robbery. Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of the
crime.
(HN, 8/23/98)(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P8)
1920 Jun 12, Republicans in
Chicago nominated Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin Coolidge,
governor of Massachusetts, for vice president.
(HN, 6/12/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)
1920 Aug 17, Georgia Gibbs, singer
(Ballin the Jack, Kiss of Fire), was born in Worcester, Mass.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1920 Nov 3, "Emperor Jones" opened
at Provincetown Theater.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1920 Dec 6, In Boston, Mass., a
dog with spectacles was shown at the annual fair of the Animal Rescue
League.
(http://tinyurl.com/5hbur6)
1920 Harvard University, under
president A. Lawrence Lowell (1909-1933), conducted a clandestine court
and “tried” 30 male students and staff members for the “crime of
homosexuality.” As a result 2 men committed suicide and the lives of
most of the others were shattered. In 2005 William Wright authored
“Harvard’s Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals.”
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.M5)
1920 The Dalton Plan, a secondary
education technique based on individual learning, was developed in
Massachusetts. The plan grew out of the reaction of some progressive
educators to the fact that students learned at different speeds. The
Dalton Plan divided each subject in the curriculum into monthly
assignments and the students had to finish one assignment before
starting another. They were given freedom in planning their work
schedules and were encouraged to work in groups. Its popularity in the
United States waned, but it gained influence in England and France.
(HNQ, 9/8/00)
1920 Charles Ponzi (37), an
immigrant from Italy, began selling notes in Boston with 50% interest
payments payable in 45 days. In 1921 he pleaded guilty to mail fraud.
He was released from prison in 1924 and went to Florida for the land
boom offering investors profits of 200%. He again spent time in jail
and was eventually deported and died broke. In 2005 Michael Zuckoff
authored “Ponzi’s Scheme.”
(WSJ, 3/4/05, p.W6)
1922 Apr 1, William Manchester,
historian (Death of a President), was born in Attleboro, Mass.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1924 Sep 24, Boston,
Massachusetts, opened its airport.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1924 Three Boston securities
executives pooled their money together to create Massachusetts
Investors Trust, the first modern US mutual fund. A Dutch merchant had
cobbled together the earliest mutual-style fund, Eendragt Maakt Magt
(Unity creates Strength) in 1774.
(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.83)(http://mutualfunds.about.com/cs/history/a/fund_history.htm)(WSJ,
1/3/07, p.R6)
1925 Feb 8, Jack Lemmon, actor
(Days of Wine & Roses, Missing), was born in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1925 Jul 4, 44 died when Dreyfus
Hotel in Boston collapsed.
(Maggio, 98)
1925 Nov 20, Robert F. Kennedy,
U.S. Attorney General and Senator, was born in Brookline, Mass. While
at Harvard during World War II, Robert F. Kennedy joined the U.S. Naval
Reserve and served as a seaman on the destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.
The ship was named for Kennedy’s eldest brother, who had been killed in
battle during World War II. Kennedy died from an assassin’s bullet June
6, 1968, in Los Angeles after proclaiming victory in California’s
Democratic Party primary election.
(AP, 11/20/97)(HNQ, 7/14/98)(HN, 11/20/98)
1926 Mar 16, Rocket science
pioneer Robert H. Goddard successfully tested the first liquid-fueled
rocket, in Auburn, Mass. It went 184' (56 meters).
(HN, 3/16/98)(AP, 3/15/07)
1926 Johnny Miles (d.2003 at 97)
of Canada won the Boston Marathon.
(BS, 6/26/03, 7A)
1927 May 18, The Ritz Hotel opened
in Boston.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1927 Aug 6, A Massachusetts high
court heard the final plea from Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italians
convicted of murder.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1927 Aug 23, Italian-born
anarchist immigrants Nicola Sacco (right) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti,
convicted of murder in 1921, were executed in Boston in spite of
worldwide protests. On April 15, 1920, a paymaster and his guard at a
shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts, were killed in a robbery. In
the national climate of suspicion of anarchists, communists and
foreigners in general, Sacco and Vanzetti, two admitted radicals, were
arrested for the crime and convicted on flimsy circumstantial evidence
in a trial presided over by the openly prejudiced Judge Webster Thayer.
For six years, the two gained support as they attempted to obtain a new
trial, but their request was denied even after a convicted killer
confessed to the 1920 murders. In April 1927, Judge Thayer sentenced
Sacco and Vanzetti to die in the electric chair. In 1977 Sacco and
Vanzetti were vindicated when Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis
established a memorial in the victims’ honor. In 2007 Bruce Watson
authored “Sacco & Vanzetti.”
(TMC, 1994, p.1927)(AP, 8/23/97)(HNPD, 8/23/98)(HN,
8/23/98)(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P8)
1928 Jan 2, Vaughn Beals, later
CEO of Harley Davidson motorcycle, was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1928 Jun 3, Commander Amelia
Earhart departed with pilot Bill Stultz from Boston Harbor to Halifax,
Nova Scotia, and then to Trepassey, Newfoundland. From there on June 17
they embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales.
(AP, 6/17/97)(HNQ, 3/8/02)(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1928 Nov 17, The Boston Garden
officially opened.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1929 Jul 4, Al Davis, NFL team
owner (LA & Oakland Raiders), was born in Brocton, Mass.
(SFC, 1/22/03, p.A10)(MC, 7/4/02)
1930 American industrialist
Charles R. Crane bought 18 brass bells from the Soviet government,
saving them from being melted down in Josef Stalin's purges that saw
thousands of monks executed and churches and monasteries destroyed or
turned into prisons, orphanages or animal barns. They hung for decades
in the towers at Lowell House and Harvard Business School's Baker
Library. In 2007 Harvard returned the largest of the bells, the
Everyday Bell, to the Danilovsky Monastery and planned to return the
rest in 2008.
(AP, 9/12/07)
1931 Mar 13, Rosalind Elias,
mezzo-soprano, was born in Lowell, Mass.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1931 Mar 26, Leonard Nimoy, actor
(Spock-Star Trek, Mission Impossible), was born in Boston, MA.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1931 Apr 6, Richard Alpert, later
known as the spiritual leader Ram Dass, was born in Boston.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.5)
1931 Jun 20, Olympia Dukakis,
actress (Moonstruck, Cemetery Club), was born in Lowell, Mass.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1932 Jul 18, The Matson luxury
liner "Lurline" was christened in Quincy, Mass. by Lurline M.
Roth, daughter of company founder Capt. William Mattson.
(Ind, 11/4/00,5A)
1932 Eugene O’Neill’s play,
"Strange Interlude," opened in Quincy. The crowds saved the restaurant
across the street owned by Howard Johnson.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, Z1p.10)
1933 Jan 5, The 30th president
(1923-1929) of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton,
Mass., at age 60. In 1998 Robert Sobel published his biography:
"Coolidge: An American Enigma." Robert Ferrell published "The
Presidency of Calvin Coolidge." In 2006 David Greenberg authored
“Calvin Coolidge.”
(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/7/98,
p.W13)(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.D8)
1933 Jul, Rodolphe Agassiz,
recently acquitted of insider trading by the Mass. state supreme court,
died. The court ruled that his 1926 purchase of Cliff Mining stock,
based on a geologist’s estimates, was a perk.
(WSJ, 7/3/02, p.B1)
1933 Oct 30, Michael S. Dukakis,
(Gov-D-Mass) and presidential candidate (D-1988), was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1933-1953 James Conant ran Harvard Univ. He took what
was a regional, parochial and snobbish institution, resistant to Jews
and women, and turned it into a national, meritocratic university.
(Econ, 2/25/06, p.38)
1934 Dec 27, The 1st youth US
hostel opened at Northfield, Mass.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1934 Hound & Horn, originally
subtitled "a Harvard Miscellany", folded. It was a literary quarterly
founded by Harvard undergrads Lincoln Kirstein (1906-1996) and Varian
Fry in 1927.
(WSJ, 2/17/07,
p.P18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_&_Horn)
1935 May 25, Babe Ruth hit his
last three and 714th and final home run for the Boston Braves in a game
against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
(AP, 5/25/97)(SC, 5/25/02)
1936 May 12, Frank Stella,
painter, was born in Massachusetts.
(HN, 5/12/01)(SFC, 6/17/04, p.E5)
1938 Walter Gropius (1883-1969),
German architect and Bauhaus founder, built his modern style Gropius
House in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Gropius had fled Germany in 1934.
(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P14)
1938 Massachusetts inventor Earl
Silas Tupper left the Du Pont company in 1938 to form the Tupper
Plastics Company. The material called "Poly-T" used to create
Tupperware was developed from a black, putrid, rock-hard oil refining
waste product called polyethylene slag. He refined and purified the
slag into a higher quality plastic. He then turned his attention to
replacing the widely used glass and metal food containers with his
waterproof and airtight seal introduced in 1947.
(HNQ, 2/13/99)
1939 Mar 2, The Massachusetts
legislature voted to ratify the Bill of Rights, 147 years after the
first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution had gone into effect.
(AP, 3/2/98)
1939 Earl Tupper (d.1983), a
Massachusetts tree surgeon and inventor, founded Tupperware. In 1942 he
introduced a polyethylene container with a fitted cap. The containers
took off in 1951 when he hired Brownie Wise (d.1992), a secretary from
Detroit, who developed a sales network based on patio parties. Tupper
forced Wise out in 1958 and sold the company to Rexall Drugs. [see 1938]
(WSJ, 2/18/04, p.A9)
1941 Robert McCloskey (d.2003),
author and illustrator, wrote "Make Way for Ducklings." It was set in
Boston and became a children's classic.
(WSJ, 7/2/03, p.D8)
1942 Nov 28, 491 people died in a
fire that destroyed the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston. The cause
of the fire was never officially determined, though many blamed a
busboy who had survived the blaze.
(AP, 11/28/97)(DT internet 11/28/97)
1943 William Whyte (d.2000 at 86)
authored "Street Corner Society," a study of Italian gangs in Boston’s
North End.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.C2)
1946 Nov 5, John F. Kennedy
(D-Mass) was elected to House of Representatives.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1946 Nov 13, The 1st artificial
snow was produced from a natural cloud at Mt. Greylock, Mass.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1946 The Boston Red Sox lost the
World Series.
(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A7)
1946 Georges Doriot (1899-1987), a
French-born Harvard professor, took public his Boston-based American
Research & Development Corporation, America’s first venture
fund. In 1972 ARD was taken over by Textron. In 2008 Spencer E.
Ante authored “Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of
Venture Capital.”
(WSJ, 5/21/08, p.A17)(Econ, 3/14/09, SR p.9)
1947 Feb 14, Donna Halper,
Boston-based historian, author, educator and radio consultant, was
born. Since 1984, Halper has been the advocate for an adult with
autism. She continues to do presentations on such topics as media
history, women’s history, and popular culture at museums, schools, and
historical societies.
(www.donnahalper.com/dlh.htm)
1947 Feb 15, John Adams, composer
(Nixon in China), was born in Worcester Mass.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1947 Jun 5, Secretary of State
George C. Marshall in a speech at Harvard Univ. called for a European
Recovery Program to be initiated by the European powers and supported
by American aid (Marshall Plan). The program was intended to assist
European nations, including former enemies, to rebuild their economies.
From 1947 to 1952 it helped Western Europe recover by providing some
$13 billion worth of technical and economic aid. In 2007 Greg Behrman
authored “The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When
America Helped Save Europe.”
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)(AP, 6/5/97)(HN, 6/5/98)(Econ,
9/29/07, p.89)
1947 Joseph Lloyd "Wally" Walcott
(d.1998 at 101) opened Wally’s Paradise in Boston’s South End
neighborhood. He attracted jazz stars from New York to play there.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1947 Congressman Tommy D'Alesandro
Jr. was elected mayor of Baltimore. He was the city's first
Italian-American and Catholic mayor and served for 12 years. In 2002
his daughter Nancy Pelosi became the 1st woman to lead a party in the
US Congress after Democrats voted 177-29 in support of the liberal from
SF.
(http://tinyurl.com/u6bdk)(SFC, 11/15/02, p.A1)
1947 Massachusetts executed its
last inmate and functionally abolished capital punishment.
(WSJ, 4/8/06, p.P8)
1948 Sep 2, Christa McAuliffe, the
first civilian passenger on a space mission, was born in Boston, Mass.
During that 1986 mission, she and the six other crew members on the
space shuttle Challenger perished in an explosion shortly after launch.
(HN, 9/2/98)
1948 In Boston, Mass., Bess. L.
Hawes (1921-2009) and Jacqueline Steiner co-wrote the political hit
“Charlie on the MTA.’’ The song became a big hit for the Kingston Trio
in 1959.
(http://tinyurl.com/ygtrqh8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.T.A.)
1948 William Rosenberg (d.2002 at
86) opened a doughnut shop called Open Kettle in Quincy. Mass. 2 years
later the name was changed to Dunkin’ Donuts. In 1955 he began selling
franchises and helped create the Int’l. Franchise Assoc.
(SFC, 9/23/02, p.B5)
1948 The US government launched a
heart study in Framingham, Mass., amid an epidemic of heart disease, to
compile reams of health data on a group of people in their 30s, 40s and
50s, and hope that over time links would emerge between their
lifestyles and heart health. Discoveries by the long term study
included: Cigarette smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol
and diabetes raise the risk of heart disease, and physical exercise
lowers the risk. In 2009 researchers reported that the data showed that
loneliness spreads very much like a communicable disease.
(AP, 11/30/07)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.90)
1948 Richard Bolt and Leo Beranek,
professors at MIT, established a small acoustics consulting firm and
soon added a former student of Bolt’s, Robert Newman. In 1949 BBN won
its first major consulting contract, designing the acoustics for the UN
General Assembly Hall. In 2008 Leo Beranek authored “Riding the Waves:
A Life in Sound, Science and Industry.”
(www.bbn.com/about/timeline/)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A13)
1949 Oct 9, Harvard Law School
began admitting women.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1949 William Schwann (d.1998 at
85) began a record catalog in Cambridge, Mass., that grew to become the
Schwann Opus Catalog.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B6)
1950 Jan 17, In Boston 11 men
robbed the Brink's office of $1.2M cash & $1.5M securities. The
1978 film "The Brink’s Job" starred Peter Falk and Peter Boyle. It was
based on the nonfiction book "The Big Stick-Up at Brink’s" by Noel Behn.
(SFC, 8/1/98,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Brinks_Robbery)
1950 Jan 29, Ann Jillian, actress
(Mr. Mom, Jennifer Slept Here), was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0422713/)
1950 The DeCordova Museum and
Sculpture Park opened on the former estate of Julian DeCordova, a
Boston entrepreneur and supporter of the arts.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W2)
1951 The 8-inch Ginny dolls were
introduced by Vogue Dolls Inc. of Bedford, Mass.
(SFC,11/12/97, Z1 p.7)
1952 Feb 18, Two tanker ships
broke apart off Cape Cod. 14 men died in the wrecks, 9 of 41 on the
Pendleton and 5 of 43 on the Fort Mercer.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.B7)
1953 Mar 18, The Braves baseball
team announced that they were moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1953 Jun 7, The 1st color network
telecast in compatible color was in Boston, Mass.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1953 Jun 9, About 100 people died
when a tornado struck Worcester, Mass. The tornado from the Midwest
roared into Massachusetts. By the time it left, 94 people were dead,
and more than $58 million in property damage occurred. It was the worst
tornado in New England history.
(AP, 6/9/97)(http://tinyurl.com/yg8dhcd)
1953 Sep 12, Senator John
Fitzgerald Kennedy (36) of Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
(24).
(AP, 9/12/03)
1953 Nov 11, The Polio virus was
identified and photographed for the first time in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
(HN, 11/11/98)
1953-1971 Nathan Marsh Pusey (1907-2001), served as
president of Harvard Univ.
(SFC, 11/22/01, p.A29)
1954 Feb 26, 1st typesetting
machine (photo engraving) used at Quincy, MA.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Jun 28, US Sen. John F.
Kennedy wrote a letter to Gunilla von Post, a Swedish woman he had met
on the French Riviera in August 1953, and suggested sailing with her
for 2 weeks around the Mediterranean. Kennedy was 36 when he met Post
(21). In 1997 Post authored a book, “Love, Jack,” that detailed her
long-distance affair with Kennedy. In 2010 an auction house put 11
letters and 3 telegrams of their correspondence up for sale.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A9)
1954 Jul 3, In Salem Mass.,
champion female athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)
won the US Women's Open. She had just come back from a battle with
cancer, yet won the event by 12 strokes.
(www.uswomensopen.com/2004/press/whatta-gal.html)
1954 Dec 23, Dr. Joseph Murray led
a team of surgeons at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston in the 1st
successful organ transplant. Ronald Herrick donated a kidney to his
twin brother, Richard. In 1990 Dr. Murray was warded a Nobel Prize for
his work.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A14)(SFC, 12/3/01, p.A17)(SSFC,
12/19/04, Par p.7)
1955 Nov 28, Boston Red Sox
General Manager Joe Cronin announced the purchase of the SF Seals
baseball team for $150,000.
(SFC, 11/25/05, p.F2)
1955 Gov. Christian Herter sent a
National Guard tank to quell a Charlestown prison riot led by Theodore
"Teddy" Green (d.1998 at 82). Green’s daughter (17) persuaded her
father to surrender and ended the 85-hour standoff. He was sent to
Alcatraz after the riot. Green later bragged of robbing 20 banks and
making 40 prison break attempts.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A21)
1955 Sen. John Kennedy began
seeing Dr. Janet Graham Travell for his back pain. Travell later became
the 1st woman to serve as White House physician.
(SFC, 11/22/04, p.A2)
1956 Feb 26, Writers Sylvia Plath
and Ted Hughes met at a party in Cambridge.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1956 Jul 25, The Italian liner
Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the
New England coast late at night and began sinking in 200 feet of water
50 miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Mass. 51 people died as a
result of the impact. The Dorea was headed from Genoa, Italy, to NY.
The Andrea Doria sank eleven hours after the crash.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A16)(SFC,
7/30/99, p.D5)(AP, 7/25/07)
1957 Jun 13, The Mayflower 2, a
replica of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America in 1620,
arrived at Plymouth, Mass., after a nearly two-month journey from
England.
(AP, 6/13/07)
1957 National Geographic Magazine
published a picture of flamingos that inspired Donald Featherstone of
Leominster, Mass., to start a business making plastic models for yard
ornaments. The plastic flamingo was designed at Union Products in Mass.
In 1958.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, zone 1 p.2)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.8)
1957 Sarah Caldwell (b.1924)
founded the Opera Company of Boston.
(WSJ, 6/16/04, p.D8)
1958-1960 The city of Boston evicted some 7,000
people from the West End and sold the land to a builder, who put up
luxury high-rise apartments.
(WSJ, 8/23/00, p.A1)
1959 The Central Artery freeway
was erected in Boston. It was scheduled to come down in 2004 the
completion of the "Big Dig" underground freeway.
(SFC, 12/20/02, p.J12)
1960 Jan 2, Sen. John F. Kennedy
of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1960 Jun 27, Chlorophyll "A" was
synthesized at Cambridge, Mass.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1960 Oct 5, A Lockheed Electra
turbo-prop crashed in Boston Harbor and 62 people died. The plane had
flown into a flock of starlings.
(MC, 10/5/01)(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A21)
1960 Nov 8, Massachusetts Sen.
John F. Kennedy was elected 35th president by 118,550 popular votes. He
defeated Richard Nixon in the US pres. elections. Popular legend later
held that the political machine of Richard Daley in Chicago provided
the necessary votes for Kennedy to win Illinois (27 electoral votes)
and the elections. The Electoral College result was 303 to 219.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.B5)(AP, 11/8/97)(SFEC, 1/18/98,
Par p.2)(HN, 11/6/98)
1960s Taj Mahal began performing
with his R&B band around Boston coffeehouses and later earned a
degree in animal husbandry.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, DB p.9)
1960s Edward Lorenz, MIT
meteorologist, popularized the notion of the butterfly effect: where a
small turbulence, such as a butterfly flapping its wings, can set in
motion atmospheric events that can climax in a hurricane.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A6)
1961 Jan 20, Francis Poulenc's
"Gloria," premiered in Boston.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1962 Apr 24, The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a
television signal, between Camp Parks, Ca., and Westford, Mass.
(AP, 4/24/02)
1962 Aug 14, Robbers held up a
U.S. mail truck in Plymouth, Mass., making off with more than $1.5
million.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1962 Nov 6, Edward M. Kennedy
(1932-2009) of Massachusetts was 1st elected as US Senator (D) to fill
the vacancy caused by the 1960 resignation of his brother, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy, for the term ending January 3, 1965. Pres. Kennedy
had persuaded the governor of Massachusetts to appoint his college
roommate, Benjamin A. Smith II, until Edward turned 30.
(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=K000105)(Econ,
8/29/09, p.30)
1962 Herbert Gans authored "The
Urban Villagers," a study of the working-class in Boston’s West End.
(WSJ, 8/23/00, p.A6)
1962 Steve Russell at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology created "Spacewar!", one of the
earliest video games for a digital computer.
(AFP, 10/20/06)
1962-1964 The Boston Strangler killed 13 women during
this period. [see DeSalvo, 1967, 1973]
(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A3)
1963 Jan 29, Poet Robert Frost
(b.1874) died in Boston at age 88. In 1999 Jay Parini published "Robert
Frost: A Life." Lawrance Thompson authored a 3-volume biography
(1966-1976).
(AP, 1/29/98)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1963 Mar 11, Bessie Goldberg was
murdered at her home in Belmont, a Boston suburb. Roy Smith, an
ex-convict who had been sent to clean the home, was convicted of the
murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1976 Gov. Dukakis commuted
his sentence. Smith died of cancer 3 days after his parole. In 2006
Sebastian Junger authored “A Death in Belmont” an account of the case.
(WSJ, 4/8/06, p.P8)
1963 Jun 18, 3,000 blacks
boycotted Boston public school.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1963 Julia Child made her TV debut
as "The French Chef" on Boston's WGBH-TV. PBS picked up the show a year
later.
(SFEM, 8/10/97, p.23)
1963 Harvey R. Ball (d.2001 at
79), advertising executive, created the yellow smiley face (happy face)
for the Massachusetts based State Mutual Life Assurance Company of
America. He was paid $45 for the artwork and never applied for a
trademark or copyright. In 2006 Darrin M. McMahon authored “Happiness:
A History.”
(SFC, 4/17/01, p.A20)(Econ, 1/14/06, p.82)
1963 The Lestoil Co. of Holyoke,
Mass., began selling its liquid cleaner in special-edition reproduction
glass flasks, which resembled 19th century whiskey flasks. The special
edition ended in 1964.
(SFC, 5/28/08, p.G2)
1964 Jan, Mary Sullivan was raped
and strangled in her Boston apartment. In 2001 there was evidence that
she was not killed by Albert DeSalvo, the suspected Boston Strangler.
(SFC, 12/7/01, p.A2)
1964 Jun 2, Rolling Stones made
their 1st US concert tour debut in Lynn, Mass.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1965 Mar 12, Edward "Teddy" Deegan
was found dead in an alley in Chelsea, Mass. A week later an FBI memo
named 6 men, including Vincent J. Flemmi and Joseph "The Animal"
Barboza, as the killers. Barboza became a star witness and provided
false testimony to convict 4 innocent men. The New England Mafia
shotgunned Barboza in SF in 1976. Over the next 3 decades FBI
informants in Boston murdered over 20 people.
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A5)(SFC, 11/21/03, p.A3)
1965 Nov 26, Arlo Guthrie (17) was
arrested in Stockbridge, Mass., for dumping some trash following a
Thanksgiving feast at a restaurant run by Alice Brock. He wrote a song
about the event that became a folk classic and was turned into a movie
in 1969.
(WSJ, 11/22/06, p.A1)
1965 Thomas Winship (d.2002 at 81)
succeeded his father, Lawrence Winship, as editor of the Boston Globe.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A22)
1966 Mar 21, Supreme Court
reversed Massachusetts ruling that Fanny Hill" is obscene.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1966 Nov 8, Republican Edward
Brooke of Massachusetts was the first African-American elected to the
Senate by popular vote in 85 years.
(AP, 11/8/97)(HN, 11/6/98)
1966 The Standells song “Dirty
Water,” an ode to Boston and its polluted waterways, reached No. 11 on
the Billboard’s Top 40 chart. In 2006 the group filed a suit against
Anheuser-Busch for illegal use of the song in commercials.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.D11)
1967 Jan 10, Edward W. Brooke,
R-Mass., the first black elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote,
took his seat.
(AP, 1/10/98)
1967 Jan 18, Albert DeSalvo, who
claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge,
Mass., of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. Sentenced to life,
DeSalvo was killed by a fellow inmate in 1973. DeSalvo had confessed to
being the Boston Strangler and killing 13 women. He was never convicted
of murder. A portrait of him with police interviews was made in 1996
for the TV show Biography. In 1999 DNA evidence was sought to confirm
DeSalvo's claims.
(SFC, 6/6/96, E9)(AP, 1/18/98)(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A4)
1967 May 28, Francis Chichester
arrived home at Plymouth from a round-the-world, one man sailboat trip.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1967 Jun 2, Race riots took place
in the Roxbury section of Boston.
(http://ksgaccman.harvard.edu/hotc/DisplayPlace.asp?id=11607)
1967 The film “Titicut Follies”
was directed by Frederick Wiseman. It was banned by the Massachusetts
Supreme Court for its stark portrayal of inmate conditions in
Bridgewater, Mass.
(WSJ, 11/11/06, p.P2)
1967 The Boston Red Sox lost the
World Series.
(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A7)
1967 Arlo Guthrie recorded the
18.5 minute ballad "Alice’s Restaurant." It was about his arrest for
dumping garbage that had piled up at the former Episcopal Church where
Alice and Ray Brock lived in Great Barrington, Mass. Guthrie bought the
building in 1991 for $300,000 and set up a foundation to promote
understanding among religious traditions. "It’s a bring your own god
church."
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)
1968 May 20, The US Supreme Court
(United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 391 U.S. 244) ruled for
the breakup of United Shoe Machinery Company in Mass.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/391/244/)(WSJ,
10/2/97, p.A16)
1968 Jun 14, Four of the Boston
Five were convicted of conspiracy in their organized draft protest.
Mitchell Goodman (1924-1997) organized the protest that included the
burning of draft cards. Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), American
pediatrician, was one of the defendants and the trial came to be known
as the "Spock trial." The convictions were later overturned.
(SFC, 2/7/97,
p.A28)(www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html)
1968 Jul 31, In Boston 4 men were
convicted for shooting Edward "Teddy" Deegan in a Chelsea, Mass., alley
in 1965. In 2007 a federal judge in Boston ordered the government to
pay a record nearly $102 million for the FBI's role in the wrongful
murder convictions of the 4 men. Two of the men convicted, Louis Greco
and Henry Tameleo, died behind bars. The others, Peter Limone (73) and
Joseph Salvati (74) spent three decades in prison.
(www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue_27/fbi%27s_legacy_of_shame.html)
1969 Jan 22, In Massachusetts
Francis Sargent (1915-1998) became governor after John Volpe was made
transportation secretary in the Nixon administration.
(SFC, 10/24/98,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_W._Sargent)
1969 Mar 2, Phil Esposito of the
Boston Bruins became the 1st NHL Player to score 100 points in a season.
(www.nhl.com/history/030269.html)
1969 Jul 18, A car driven by Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009), D-Mass., plunged off a bridge on
Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard. His passenger,
28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, died. Kennedy did not report the accident
until it was discovered 9 hours later.
(TMC, 1994, p.1969)(AP, 7/18/97)(Econ, 8/29/09, p.30)
1969 Aug 17, Donald E. Wahlberg
Jr., rocker (New Kids-Hangin' Tough), was born in Boston.
(www.donniewahlberg.com/bio.htm)
1969 Oct 12, Nancy Ann Kerrigan,
figure skater, was born in Woburn, Mass. In 1994 she won an Olympics
silver medal.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0449872/bio)
1969 Nov 22, Jonathan Beckwith and
others of Harvard Univ. announced the isolation of a single gene of E.
coli.
(http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/359/18/1970)
1969 In Boston the City Hall Plaza
was built. 1,246,343 bricks covered the 9 acres.
(WSJ, 1/22/00, p.A1)
1969 Smith & Wesson began a
school for training police and law enforcement officials from around
the world.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A20)
1969 The Harvard faculty voted to
exile ROTC because of the Vietnam War.
(WSJ, 10/4/01, p.A1)
1969 The Leonard Silver
Manufacturing Company was started by Leonard Florence in Chelsea,
Massachusetts, to market silver plate holloware. Products were
manufactured by firms in India. The company was acquired by Towle
Silversmiths in 1978. At that time, the headquarters were moved to
Boston, Mass. The Leonard Silver line is now a part of International
Silver Company (Syrtech Corp.).
(www.livingvictorian.com/askrenipm/askreninov03.html)
1970 Apr 29, Uma Thurman, actress,
was born in Boston, Mass. Her films included “The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen” (1988) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994).
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000235/)
1970 Aug 1, The dance piece "The
Fugue," created by Twyla Tharp (b.1941), premiered at the Univ. of
Massachusetts in Amherst.
(WSJ, 10/17/96,
p.A20)(www.abt.org/education/archive/ballets/fugue.html)
1970 Nov, Rev. Robert Drinan
(1920-2007), a Jesuit priest, was elected US congressman from
Massachusetts. He later became the 1st member of Congress to call for
the impeachment of Pres. Nixon due to the administration’s undeclared
war in Cambodia.
(SFC, 1/30/07,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drinan)
1970s Antitrust laws forced the
breakup of the United Shoe Company.
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A16)
1971 Mar 21, Daniel Ellsberg
obtained a copy of the Pentagon Papers, commissioned by then-Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara, from his former pentagon colleagues and
showed it to Neil Sheehan, a young New York Times reporter, at
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR
p.6)(www.topsecretplay.org/index.php/content/timeline)
1971-1991 Derek Bok ran Harvard Univ. In 2006 he
returned as interim president following the resignation of Larry
Summers.
(Econ, 2/25/06, p.37)
1972 Apr 17, A handful of women
were first accepted as entrants to the Boston marathon.
(SFC, 3/10/00,
p.D8)(www.boston.com/marathon/history/1972.shtml)
1972 Jun 20, Joseph Yandle drove
the getaway car after his partner robbed a Mystic Bottled Liquors store
in Medford and killed manager Joseph Reppucci. Yandle was sentenced to
life in prison but was released after 23 years when he reported that he
was a Vietnam veteran addicted to heroin at the time of the crime. In
1998 the story was found to be a hoax and Yandle went back to prison.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A4)
1972 John Kerry lost a bid for
Congress and enrolled in Boston College Law School.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.J5)
1973 Nov 25, Albert DeSalvo,
Boston strangler, was stabbed to death in prison. DeSalvo, the
self-admitted Boston strangler, had been tried and convicted on
unrelated assaults. 13 women were killed in Boston between 1962-1964.
DNA evidence was sought in 1999. Susan Kelly wrote a book in 1995 on
the Boston Strangler.
(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A3)(www.us.imdb.com/name/nm1108915/)
1973 Gene Sharp (b.1928), Boston
based scholar, authored his 902-page “Politics of Nonviolent Action.”
Following a 1992 trip to Burma (Myanmar) he authored “From Dictatorship
to Democracy,” a 90-page work that offered a list of 198 methods of
nonviolent action. His writings impacted political action in numerous
dictatorial regimes.
(WSJ, 9/13/08, p.A10)
1974 Sep 9, In Boston,
Massachusetts, a group called Restore Our Alienated Rights (R.O.A.R.)
held a rally at City Hall Plaza a few days before the start of school.
When Senator Ted Kennedy took the stage to speak in favor of busing,
the crowd reacted in anger. Protests and violence continued for three
years.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/maps/maps_pop.html)
1974 Sep 12, The start of
court-ordered busing to achieve racial integration in Boston's public
schools was marred by violence in South Boston. The Boston
desegregation plan had been drafted by Robert Dentler (1928-2008) and
Marvin Scott of Boston Univ.
(AP, 9/12/99)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.B5)
1974 Oct 4, Anne Sexton (b.1928),
American poet, committed suicide in Massachusetts. In 1991 Diane
Middlebrook (1939-2007), authored “Anne Sexton: A Biography.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)(SSFC,
12/16/07, p.A1)
1974 Oct 15, National Guard
mobilized to restore order in Boston school busing.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1974 Michael Dukakis defeated
Francis Sargent for the governorship.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)
1975 Apr 21, Bill Rodgers won the
Boston Marathon, the 1st local winner in 30 years.
(WSJ, 9/30/02,
p.R3)(http://boston.com/marathon/history/1975.shtml)
1975 Sep 8, Boston's public
schools began their court-ordered citywide busing program amid
scattered incidents of violence.
(AP, 9/8/97)
1975 The Boston Globe under Thomas
Winship won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the busing crises.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A22)
1975 The Boston Red Sox lost the
World Series.
(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A7)
1975 The USS Constitution (aka Old
Ironsides) was restored and reopened to the public in Boston Harbor.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, Par p.14)
1975 Harvard voted to cut off all
university funding for ROTC because of the military policy on gays.
(WSJ, 10/4/01, p.A1)
1975 The Board of Trustees of
Smith College selected Jill Ker Conway, an Australian resident of
Canada, as their 1st woman president. In 2001 Conway authored the 3rd
volume of her autobiography "A Woman’s Education."
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.M3)
1976 Dec 21, The
Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant ran aground near Nantucket
Island, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.
(AP, 12/21/97)
1976 Massachusetts moved its
primary from late April to early March. New Hampshire reacted by moving
the due date to February and then to late January.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.D6)
1976 James Anthony Martin was
believed to have escaped to Canada after he shot and killed Edward
Paulsen. Canadian authorities later charged Martin with 31 crimes over
the next 24 years.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.C18)
1977 Seiji Ozawa left the SF
Symphony to lead the Boston Symphony.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.B9)
1978 In Massachusetts Aveline
(d.2001 at 78) and Michio Kushi founded the Kushi Institute to teach
macrobiotics. Aveline later authored her autobiography "Aveline: The
Life and Dream of the Woman Behind Macrobiotics Today."
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.C2)
1978 Nicholas Mavroules (d.2003)
was elected as US Congressman from Massachusetts.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A18)
1978 Edwin Dickinson (b.1891),
American painter, died in Wellfleet, Mass. His work included "The Cello
Player" (1924-1926).
(SFC, 12/4/00, p.B1)
1979 Jul 10, Conductor Arthur
Fiedler, who had led the Boston Pops orchestra for a half-century, died
in Brookline, Mass., at age 84.
(AP, 7/10/99)
1979 Oct 1, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Boston for the start of a U.S. tour.
(AP, 10/1/99)
1979 Oct 20, The John F. Kennedy
Library was dedicated in Boston.
(AP, 10/20/99)
1979 Oct, Stephen Howard Fagan
(37) abducted his two daughters, aged 2 & 4, from his former wife,
Barbara Kurth. Fagan told his daughters that their mother had died and
raised them in Florida. He was arrested in 1998 for kidnapping and
brought back to Boston to answer charges.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A17)
1979 In Boston Joseph P. Kennedy
launched the Citizen’s Energy Corp., a tax-exempt social welfare
program that later depended on for-profit subsidiaries. The initial
idea was to ease heating bills during the oil crises. The group signed
its 1st crude oil contract with Venezuela. By 2007 the company had
expanded to 16 states delivering los-cost oil to as many as 400,000
households. In 1987 Kennedy was elected as a Massachusetts
Representative to Congress and served until 1999.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A1,10)(SFC, 2/17/07, p.A3)
1980 Apr 21, At the Boston
Marathon, Rosie Ruiz was the first woman to cross the finish line; but
she was disqualified as a fraud when officials discovered she had
jumped into the race about a mile from the finish.
(AP, 4/21/00)
1980 Dec 11, Massachusetts Sec. of
State Michael Connolly banned the sale of Apple Computer stock arguing
that the $22 price per share was too high.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1980 Stephen Bernard (d.2009 at
61) and his wife Lynn founded his kettle-cooked Cape Cod Potato Chips
brand. The company was sold to Anheuser-Busch in 1985, but they
reacquired it when the brewer sold its Eagle Snacks division to Lance
Inc. in 1999.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.B7)
1981 State Supreme Court cases in
Massachusetts and New Jersey ruled that husbands can be prosecuted for
raping their wives.
(NW, 6/30/03, p.44)
1981 Roger Wheeler, chairman of
Telex Corp. and owner of World Jai Alai, was shot execution style at a
Tulsa country club. In 2001 2 reputed Boston mobsters, James Bulger and
Stephen Flemmi, were charged. Jai Alai executive John B. Callahan was
murdered in Aug 1982 in Miami.
(SFC, 3/15/01, p.A8)
1982 John Kerry was elected
lieutenant governor of Mass.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.J5)
1983 Mar 6, In a case that drew
much notoriety, a woman in New Bedford, Mass., reported being
gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern; four men were later
convicted.
(AP, 3/6/98)
1983 May 15, The Madison Hotel in
Boston, Mass., was destroyed by implosion.
(http://tinyurl.com/2j8cul)
1983 Jul 20, The US House censured
Reps. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts and Daniel B. Crane of Illinois for
having sexual relations with pages. Studds, a liberal Democrat who
acknowledged having sex with a 17-year-old male page in 1973 and making
sexual advances to two others, admitted an error in judgment but did
not apologize. The first openly gay member of Congress went on to win
re-election until his retirement in the mid-1990s. Crane admitted
having sex several times with a 17-year-old female page in 1980. He
apologized to the House in a quavering voice "for the shame I have
brought down on this institution." The conservative Republican was
defeated a year later.
(AP,
9/30/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Congressional_page_sex_scandal)
1983 Oct 5, Earl Tupper (b.1907),
a Massachusetts tree surgeon, inventor and founder of Tupperware
[see 1938], died in Costa Rica. In 2008 Bob Kealing authored
“Tupperware: Brownie Wise, Earl Tupper, and the Home Party Pioneers.”
(WSJ, 2/18/04,
p.A9)(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/tupper.htm)(WSJ, 7/30/08,
p.A13)
1983 Napoleon Crepeau Jr. was
convicted for the kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old Dartmouth woman.
He was convicted for 16 years in prison. He told psychologists in
prison that he would attack more women if released. He was released in
1998.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A5)
1983 Dennis Maher was convicted in
Boston of raping 3 women and spent the next 19 years in prison. In 2003
DNA evidence proved his innocence.
(SFC, 4/4/03, p.A3)
1983 Boston Cardinal Humberto
Medeiros died and was replaced by Cardinal Bernard Law.
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A3)
1983-1990 David Saxon (1920-2005), president of the
Univ. of California, left to serve as chairman of MIT Corp. and served
there until 1990.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.B5)
1984 In Mass. District Attorney
Scott Harshbarger brought the first child-sex-abuse charges against the
Amiraults, owners of the Fells Acres Day School in Malden. A new trial
was ordered in 1998 due to flawed techniques in interviewing the young
accusers. Gerald Amirault served 18 years in prison and was released in
2004.
(WSJ, 10/14/97, p.A22)(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A3)(WSJ,
5/28/04, p.A8)
1984 Massachusetts banned the
death penalty.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A7)
1984 John Kerry was elected as US
senator for Mass.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.J5)
1985 Mar 3, Kevin McHale of
Memphis State University set a Boston Celtics scoring record this night
as he poured in 56 points in a 138-129 win over the Detroit Pistons.
(http://celticsbandwagon.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html)
1985 J. Anthony Lukas (d.1997)
published “Common Ground,” an exploration of school desegregation
through the experiences of three Boston families.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.1)
1985 Charles Taylor escaped from a
Plymouth County jail in Massachusetts while awaiting extradition to
Liberia, where he was accused of embezzling money as an official in the
dictatorship of Samuel Doe. Charges against Taylor were dropped in 1999.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A10)
1986 Oct 25, Michael Sergio
parachuted into Shea Stadium during game 6 of the World Series. In game
6 of the Baseball World Series a slowly hit ball trickled through the
legs of Bill Buckner and cost the Red Sox the game. They lost game 7
and the NY Mets won the series.
(WSJ, 7/23/98, p.A1)(MC, 10/25/01)
1986 The Boston Red Sox lost the
World Series.
(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A7)
1986 The Hearst Corp. acquired
WCVB-TV in Boston.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1987 Jun 2, Georges Doriot
(b.1899), a French-born Harvard professor, died in Boston. In 1946 he
took public his American Research & Development (ARD) company. In
2008 Spencer E. Ante authored “Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the
Birth of Venture Capital.”
(WSJ, 5/21/08,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Doriot)
1987 Aug 9, In Worcester Audrey
Santo (3) fell into a backyard swimming pool and was left inert and
bedridden. Later Masses were celebrated at her home and pilgrims began
visiting her and claimed to be cured of illnesses.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, p.A8)
1987 Sep 30, Two top campaign
aides to Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis resigned after one of
them, campaign manager John Sasso, admitted leaking an attack videotape
that helped bring down the presidential candidacy of Delaware Sen.
Joseph Biden. Sasso returned to the campaign a year later.
(AP, 9/30/97)
1987 Will Fitzhugh began
publishing the Concord Review, an academic journal dedicated to the
work of high school students.
(WSJ, 5/26/00, p.W15)
1987 The US Congress approved a
$6.4 billion budget for "the Big Dig" in Boston. Its 85% support later
shrank to 55%, as costs in 2002 rose to $14.6 billion.
(SFC, 12/20/02, p.J12)
1988 Jun 18, Vice President George
Bush launched a sharp attack against Democratic presidential candidate
Michael Dukakis, accusing the Massachusetts governor of coddling
criminals by allowing some convicts out of prison on weekend furloughs.
(AP, 6/17/98)
1988 Jul 21, Massachusetts Gov.
Michael Dukakis accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the
party's convention in Atlanta, declaring, "this election isn't about
ideology; it's about competence."
(AP, 7/21/98)
1988 Sep 24, Members of the
eastern Massachusetts Episcopal diocese elected Barbara C. Harris the
first female bishop in the church's history.
(AP, 9/24/98)
1988 Nov 8, The US held elections
and Republican VP George Bush defeated Massachusetts Gov. Michael
Dukakis. Bush was elected the 41st president with 54% of the popular
vote. He and Dan Quail were elected over Dukakis and Bentson. There
have been 14 American vice presidents who have gone on to serve as
president. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler,
Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore
Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, Richard M. Nixon, Lyndon
Johnson, Gerald Ford, George Bush.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)(AP, 11/8/98)(HN, 11/6/98)(HNQ,
2/20/00)
1988 John Kerry, US senator for
Mass., sold his cookie business.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.J5)
1989 Jul 17, Isidore Feinstein
Stone (b.1907), author (I.F. Stone's Weekly), died in Boston. In 2006
Myra MacPherson authored “All Governments Lie,” a biography of Stone.
In 2009 D.D. Guttenplan authored “American Radical: The Life and Times
of I.F. Stone.”
(http://tinyurl.com/nm97z)(WSJ, 9/30/06, p.P8)(Econ,
5/16/09, p.90)
1989 Sep 1, A. Bartlett Giamatti
(51), Baseball Commissioner, died of heart attack at his summer home in
Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
(AP, 9/1/99)
1989 Oct 23, In a case that
inflamed racial tensions in Boston, Charles Stuart claimed he and his
pregnant wife, Carol, had been shot in their car by a black robber.
Carol Stuart and her prematurely delivered baby died; Charles Stuart
later died, an apparent suicide, after he was implicated.
(AP, 10/23/99)
1989 Oct 29, Angelo Mercurio
(1936-2006), an FBI informant, attended a Mafia induction ceremony at a
suburban Boston home. His evidence helped bring down the crime family
led by Raymond “Junior” Patriarca.
(SFC, 2/13/07, p.B4)(http://tinyurl.com/36ccng)
1989 Nov 6, Kitty Dukakis, wife of
Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, was hospitalized after ingesting
rubbing alcohol.
(AP, 11/6/99)
1989 The Loeb Classical Library
was taken over by Harvard Univ. Press.
(SFEC, 8/20/00, p.B12)
1990 Mar 18, There was a theft of
art work from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. 2 men
dressed as policemen made off with masterworks that included
Rembrandt’s "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," Vermeer’s "The Concert,"
Manet’s "Chez Tortoni," and 5 paintings and drawings by Edgar Degas and
a 1200 BC Chinese bronze beaker valued at $300 million. The theft led
Sen. Edward Kennedy to sponsor the museum theft provision of the 1994
Omnibus Crime Act. In 2009 Ulrich Boser authored “The Gardner Heist.”
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.A21)(SFC,
8/26/97, p.A3)(SFC,12/15/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 2/20/09, p.W10)
1990 May 20, In Massachusetts the
body of Cheryl Kosilek (35) was found in her car at a North
Attleborough shopping mall. Robert Kosilek (41) was convicted of her
murder in 1993 and while in prison demanded that the state of
Massachusetts provide him or her with a sex-change operation.
(SFC, 11/24/09,
p.A9)(www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8176530.html)
1990 Dec 28, 33 people were
injured in a trolley collision in Boston.
(AP, 12/28/00)
1990 William Weld was elected
governor of Massachusetts.
(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9004742/)
1990 The state civil commitment
law was repealed by the legislature because it was possibly
unconstitutional.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A6)
1991 Sep 24, Children's author
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, died in La Jolla,
Calif., at age 87. In 2002 Springfield, Mass., his childhood home,
opened a $6.2 million sculpture garden in his memory.
(AP, 9/24/97)(SFC, 5/27/02, p.A2)
1991 Oct 28, The Andrea Gail, a
72-foot swordfish boat from Gloucester, Mass., disappeared off the
coast of Nova Scotia. Six fishermen were lost. In 1997 Sebastian Junger
authored "The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea." A
film version followed in 2000.
(SFC, 6/21/08, p.A3)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0177971/)
1992 Aug 7, The luxury liner Queen
Elizabeth 2 ran aground off Massachusetts.
(AP, 8/7/97)
1992 Nicholas Mavroules (d.2003)
lost his Congressional seat to Peter Torkildsen after being indicted on
bribery and racketeering charges. He pleaded guilty in 1993 and served
11 months.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A18)
1993 Mar 3, Howard Stern radio
show premiered in Boston on WBCN 104.1 FM-evenings.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1993 Jul 27, Boston Celtics star
Reggie Lewis died after collapsing on a Brandeis University basketball
court during practice; he was 27.
(AP, 7/27/98)
1993 Sep 15 Katherine Ann Power,
former 60s radical who spent 23 years in hiding, surrendered to
authorities at Boston College law school in Newton. She faced charges
stemming from a 1970 bank robbery in which Boston police officer Walter
Schroeder Sr. (42) was killed. Power pleaded guilty to charges of armed
robbery and the reduced charge of manslaughter. On October 6, 1993, she
received a five-year federal term, to run concurrently with an 8-12
year state sentence. She was released in 1999.
(AP, 9/15/98)(www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/dep11.htm)
1993 Dec 6, A judge in New
Bedford, Mass., sentenced former priest James R. Porter, who'd admitted
molesting 28 children in the 1960s, to 18 to 20 years in prison for
sexual assault.
(AP, 12/6/98)
1993 Composer John Williams
retired from the Boston Pops. He composed the music for the Star Wars
films.
(WSJ, 5/13/99, p.A28)
1993 Jim Koch, founder of Boston
Beer co., the maker of Samuel Adams beer, set a new bar by creating
Triple Bock, a beverage with 17.5% alcohol by volume. In the early
2000s, Dogfish Head responded with beverages of their own that went to
22%. In 2009 Boston Beer released an updated version of its biennial
beer Utopias, to date the highest alcohol content beer on the market.
It was 27% alcohol by volume and $150 a bottle.
(AP, 11/30/09)
1993 The Boston Globe was
purchased by the New York Times for $1.07 billion.
(WSJ, 8/9/99, p.B9)
1994 Jan 5, Former House speaker
Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill died in Boston at age 81.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1994 Dec 23, John Connolly, FBI
agent, came to the Winter Hill gang’s headquarters in a Boston liquor
store and warned Kevin Weeks of pending FBI arrests for mobsters James
Bulger, Stephen Flemmi and Francis Salemme. Connolly was convicted for
corruption in 2002 and sentenced to 121 months.
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A3)(SFC, 9/17/02, p.A5)
1994 Dec 30, John Salvi opened
fire at two abortion clinics in suburban Boston and killed 2 clinic
receptionists, Lee Ann Nichols and Shannon Lowney. He was convicted on
two accounts of first-degree murder in Mar, 1996. Salvi committed
suicide in prison on Nov 29, 1996. His conviction was voided in 1997
because he died before his appeal was heard.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A1,15)(SFEC,
2/2/97, p.A3)(AP, 12/30/99)
1995 Jan, James “Whitey” Bulger,
top mobster of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang, disappeared with his
girlfriend just days before a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was
linked to 21 murders and in 2000 became a fixture on the FBI’s “Ten
Most Wanted” list.
(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A13)
1995 Jul 17, Thirty-two people
were injured when a Boston Green Line trolley rammed another train
under Copley Square.
(AP, 7/17/00)
1995 Aug 23, Alfred Eisenstaedt
(96), "Life" magazine photographer, died on Martha’s Vineyard. His
picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square became one of the
best-known images of America's joy at the end of World War Two.
(AP,
8/23/00)(www.cnn.com/EVENTS/year_in_review/passages/)
1996 US Congress named the
842-square mile Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine
Sanctuary after Massachusetts Representative Gerry E. Studds (d.2006)
in recognition of his work protecting the marine environment.
(AP, 10/14/06)
1996 A train hauled away the 360
ton reactor vessel of the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A3)
1997 Feb 9, In Newton, Mass., an
8-month old baby died while under the care of a 19-year-old British
nanny. Louisa Woodward, pleaded innocent, but was tried and convicted
on 2nd-degree murder charges in Oct.
(SFC,10/31/97,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Woodward)
1997 Apr 20, Lameck Aguta of Kenya
won the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:10:34. Ethiopia’s Fatuma Roba
won the women’s best time at 2:26:24.
(WSJ, 4/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 9, Louise Woodward failed
to respond to a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Matthew
Eappen, the baby she was convicted of killing, and this allowed a
federal court to automatically rule against her.
(www.courttv.com/trials/woodward/070998.html)
1997 Jul, AT&T agreed to pay
Wellesley Congregational Church $2,500 per month for a decade for the
right to install wireless transmission equipment in the church steeple.
An annual $6,000 bonus was included plus costs for rebuilding the
steeple. Rev. Lee Woofenden of the New Jerusalem Church in Bridgewater
also made a deal and stated: "Doing business in this world is part of
religion."
(WSJ, 12/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep, MIT student Scott
Krueger fell into a coma and died following a drinking binge at the Phi
Gamma Delta fraternity. In 1998 the fraternity was charged with
homicide.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A3)
1997 Oct 30, A jury in Cambridge,
Mass., convicted British au pair Louise Woodward of second-degree
murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. The judge, Hiller B.
Zobel, later reduced the verdict to manslaughter and set Woodward free.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1997 Oct, Jeffrey Curley (10) was
smothered to death with a gasoline rag after resisting sexual advances
from Salvatore Sicari and Charles Jaynes. Sicari and Jaynes were
convicted of murder and imprisoned. In 2000 Curley’s family was awarded
a $328 million wrongful death judgement.
(SFC, 8/24/00, p.A10)
1997 Nov 10, The English nanny,
Louise Woodward, had her murder conviction reduced to manslaughter by
Mass. judge Hiller Zobel. Her sentence was reduced to the 279 days she
had already spent in custody.
(SFC,11/11/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 28, In Medford a fire in
a 3-story building left 6 people dead including 4 children.
(SFC,12/30/97, p.A9)
1997 Massachusetts Gov. Weld, 1st
elected in 1990, resigned after Pres. Clinton named him ambassador to
Mexico.
(Econ, 8/27/05, p.27)
1998 Apr 20, Moses Tanui of Kenya
won the 102nd Boston Marathon in 2 hrs, 7 min . and 43 sec. Fatuma Roba
of Ethiopia won among the women in 2:23:21.
(WSJ, 4/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 24, The American Health
for Women magazine reported that Seattle was the healthiest city for
women and that SF rated # 2 and Boston # 3.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A5)
1998 Apr 26, In New Bedford police
killed one of 2 gunmen who robbed a McDonald’s restaurant. The other
gunman got away with 2 captives who later escaped.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A3)
1998 Jun 1, Rev. Eugene F. Rivers
had his picture on the cover of Time Mag. for his youth ministry work
in Dorchester. His Operation 2006 planned to put an adult volunteer
into the life of every at-risk child in Dorchester, who needed help, by
the year 2006.
(WSJ, 6/5/98, p.W13)
1998 Jun 6, In Boston Cardinal
Bernard Law announced that he defrocked retired priest, John Geoghan,
who was accused of sexually molesting more than 50 children over 3
decades. The church had already paid millions to settle claims brought
by dozens of alleged victims. Geoghan went on trial in 2002 and was
convicted for fondling a boy in 1992. Geoghan was sentenced 9-10 years
in prison for molesting a 10-year-old boy.
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.W18)(SFC,
1/19/02, p.A2)(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A3)
1998 cJun 14, The Boston Globe
asked for the resignation of columnist Patricia Smith due to fabricated
quotations and people in her column. The New Republic recently reported
that writer Stephen Glass had fabricated parts or all of 27 of 41
articles.
(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A4)
1998 Jun 16, Massachusetts'
highest court cleared the way for Louise Woodward to return home to
England, upholding a judge's ruling that freed the au pair convicted of
killing a baby.
(AP, 6/16/99)
1998 Jul 1, The state Board of
Education voted not to pass some 260 people who flunked the first-ever
certification test for prospective teachers.
(SFC, 7/2/98, p.A10)
1998 Nov 21, Isao Okawa, chairman
of CSK Corp., and Sega Enterprises, donated $27 million to MIT for the
creation of a center for children founded on the belief that new
digital technology will drive fundamental changes in education.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A5)
1998 Nov, Thomas Johnson was
discovered to be living in a 3-room underground home on Boy Scout
property on Nantucket Island.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A3)
1998 Dec 1, In Walpole Irene
Kennedy (75) was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Bird Park near Bird
Pond.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 30, Walker Hancock,
sculptor, died in Gloucester. His work included statues of Douglas
MacArthur, John Paul Jones, and the Stone Mountain Memorial to
Confederate heroes.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C2)
1998 William F. Weld, former
governor, published his first political novel: "Mackerel by Moonlight."
(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A20)
1998 Lois Orswell (b.1904), art
collector, died. She donated her collection to Harvard’s Fogg Art
Museum.
(WSJ, 1/30/03, p.D8)
1999 Feb 24, In Lynn a
triple-decker home was burned down and 5 people died. The next day the
boyfriend of a resident was arrested and charged with violating a
restraining order.
(SFC, 2/26/99, p.A3)
1999 Feb 24, Andre Dubus, short
story writer, died in Haverhill, Mass., at age 62. His work included
the novel: "The Lieutenant" (1967), the short story collection "Dancing
after Hours" and essays "Meditations from a Movable Chair." Dubus
became crippled in 1986 when he stopped to help a motorist and was hit
by a passing car.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 2/27/99, p.C2)
1999 Mar 8, It was reported that
the new US Courthouse on Boston harbor was recently completed. It was
designed by Henry Cobb.
(WSJ, 3/9/99, p.A20)
1999 Apr 6, In Massachusetts Maria
Grasso (54), a Chilean immigrant working as a baby sitter for a
millionaire, won the $197 million Big Game jackpot.
(SFC, 4/15/99, p.A2)
1999 Apr 20, Radcliffe Univ.
announced that it would merge fully with Harvard and become the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a graduate program.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A2)
1999 May 29, The new $31.4 million
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art opened at the abandoned
Sprague Electric Company factory complex.
(WSJ, 6/1/99, p.A20)
1999 Jun 6, The new book "Home
Town" by Tracy Kidder, was reviewed. The work focused on the city of
Northampton.
(SFEC, 6/6/99, BR p.3)
1999 Jul 4, A 2,000 pound
tombstone for "Unknown Civilians Killed in Wars" departed from Sherborn
on a 450-mile trek to Arlington National Cemetery. It was impounded by
police on August 6 for safekeeping pending approval by Congress.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A2)
1999 Jul 14, In Boston the school
board voted to end busing after 25 years. The system held 85% minority
students.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A3)
1999 Jul 16, John F. Kennedy Jr.
(38), his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister, Lauren Bessette,
were killed when the Piper Saratoga, which he piloted crashed into the
Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, p.A1)(AP, 7/16/07)
1999 Dec 3, In Worcester, Mass., 6
firefighters died after 4 tried to rescue 2 who were in trouble in a
burning warehouse. A homeless couple who allegedly knocked over a
candle were later charged with involuntary manslaughter.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A2)(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 31, It was reported that
some residents in the Boston suburb of Belmont protested the
construction of a $30 million Mormon Temple and cited the Dover
Amendment zoning law as unconstitutional. The amendment prohibited
zoning restrictions on property used for religious purposes.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.D3)
1999 Leonard P. Zakim, civil
rights activist, died of cancer at age 46. The new cable-stayed bridge
over Boston’s Charles River Basin, scheduled for completion in 2002,
was named in his honor.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.A9)
1999 The infant son of Jacques and
Karen Robidoux died 3 days shy of his 1st birthday after being fed just
breast milk from his mother pregnant, who was on a diet water and
almonds. Jacques Robidoux, head of the Body fundamentalist sect, was
convicted of 1st degree murder in 2002.
(SFC, 6/15/02, p.A14)
2000 Jan 15, In Boston
investigators found the bodies of 2 men and a woman believed to be the
victims of mobsters Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and James "Whitey"
Bulger. One of the bodies was said to be Arthur "Bucky" Barrett, one of
6 men who stole $1.5 million in a 1980 bank robbery.
(SFC, 1/15/00, p.A8)
2000 Feb 1, Big Dig officials
disclosed that the huge highway project was $1.4 billion over budget.
The project which included a tunnel under Boston Harbor was conceived
in the 1980s as a $2.5 billion job called the Central
Artery/Tunnel. The total cost was later estimated to reach $13.5
billion.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A4)
2000 Feb 28, In Massachusetts
computer-industry publisher Patrick J. McGovern and his wife, Lore Harp
McGovern, pledged a $350 million donation over 20 years to MIT to
finance brain research.
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A2)(WSJ, 2/29/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 3, In Massachusetts the
nation’s most comprehensive gun safety laws went into effect.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A11)
2000 Apr 11, James Kerasiotes, the
state’s top road officials, resigned as head of the Big Dig following
federal criticism of cost overruns.
(WSJ, 4/12/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 15, Wellesley Women’s
College received a $25 million gift from Lulu Wang and her husband
Anthony.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A17)
2000 Jul 5, Thomas Junta, a hockey
father, killed coach Michael Costin (40) following a practice hockey
match in Reading, Mass. Junta went on trial in 2001. In 2001 Junta was
found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. In 2002 Junta was sentenced 6
to 10 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/3/02, p.A3)(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A3)(SFC,
1/12/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/26/02, p.A3)
2000 Sep, In Boston the world’s
longest offshore sewage tunnel began transporting waste water deep into
the ocean.
(SFC, 9/6/00, p.A13)
2000 Nov 2, Robert Cromier,
author, died at age 75. His young-adult novels included "The Chocolate
War" (1974).
(SFC, 11/4/00, p.A23)
2000 Nov 20, The trial of nurse
Kristen Gilbert (33) began. She was charged with murdering 4 patients
at a veterans hospital.
(SFC, 11/21/00, p.A7)
2000 Dec 26, Michael McDermott, a
software tester at Edgewater Tech. In Wakefield, Mass., shot and killed
7 co-workers. He wielded a semiautomatic rifle and a shotgun. He was
beset by both financial and personal problems. McDermott, convicted in
2002, was sent to prison for life.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/26/01)(SFC, 4/25/02,
p.A7)
2000 Dec 27, Software engineer
Michael McDermott pleaded innocent to 7 counts of murder in the
shooting deaths of seven co-workers the day before at an Internet
consulting company in Wakefield, Mass. McDermott was later convicted
and sentenced to life without parole.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2000 The 100th Mormon temple was
dedicated in Belmont, Mass.
(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
2000 The US government sued Andrei
Shleifer, a top Harvard Univ. economist, for seeking profit from his
management of a foreign-aid program in Russia.
(WSJ, 10/12/04, p.A1)
2000 Bradford College of
Massachusetts closed its doors and left debts of almost $20 million.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.79)
2001 Feb 13, Pres. Bush nominated
Gov. Paul Cellucci as ambassador to Canada and cleared the way for Jane
Swift to become the state’s 1st female governor.
(SFC, 2/14/01, p.A7)
2001 Mar 2, The Harvard School of
Education announced that Jane Fonda had pledged $12.5 million for the
creation of a center on gender and education to be named after
psychologist Carol Gilligan.
(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A2)
2001 Mar 11, Lawrence Summers,
former Clinton Treasury Secretary, was named as the 27th president of
Harvard. Neil Rudenstine planned to step down in June.
(WSJ, 3/12/00, p.A1)
2001 Apr 1, Massachusetts began
offering full health insurance to poor people with HIV.
(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A4)
2001 Apr 10, Jane Swift became
acting governor following the resignation of Gov. Paul Celluci, who was
chosen as ambassador to Canada.
(SFC, 5/16/01, p.A5)
2001 Apr 16, Lee Bong Ju of South
Korea won the men’s Boston Marathon in 2:09:43. Catherine Ndereba of
Kenya won among the women in 2:23:53.
(WSJ, 4/17/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 27, Four students from
Newton, Mass., were killed near Sussex, New Brunswick, when their bus
crashed while enroute to a music festival in Halifax. At least 37
others were injured.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
2001 May 15, Acting Gov. Jane
Swift gave birth to twin girls.
(SFC, 5/16/01, p.A5)
2001 May 28, U.S. Rep. Joseph
Moakley, D-Mass., died at age 74.
(AP, 5/28/02)
2001 Jul 9, In Salem Christopher
Reardon (29), a former church leader and YMCA swim coach, pleaded
guilty to 75 charges of sex abuse of young boys. He faced 130 counts
involving 29 children.
(SFC, 7/10/01, p.A4)
2001 Sep 3, Pauline Kael (82),
film critic, died in Great Barrington, Mass. Her first 1953 movie
review was published in City Lights, a small SF magazine.
(SFC, 9/4/01, p.A16)(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D5)(AP, 9/3/02)
2001 Oct 31, The governor of
Massachusetts signed legislation exonerating 5 women executed in the
Salem witch trials of 1692, whose names had not yet been cleared.
(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.A10)
2001 Nov 4, Edward Boland (90),
state congressman from 1953-1988, died.
(WSJ, 11/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Donna Halper, Boston-based
historian and radio consultant, authored “Invisible Stars: A Social
History of Women in American Broadcasting.”
(www.amazon.com/Invisible-Stars-American-Broadcasting-Communication/dp/0765605813)
2001 Thomas H. O’Connor authored
"The Hub: Boston Past and Present."
(WSJ, 5/7/01, p.A20)
2001 Nathan Marsh Pusey (b.1907),
former president of Harvard Univ. (1953-1971), died.
(SFC, 11/22/01, p.A29)
2002 Jan 3, Acting Gov. Jane Swift
picked Patrick C. Guerriero (33), a gay former mayor and legislator, as
her candidate for lieutenant governor.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 6, Christa Worthington
(46), fashion writer, was found dead at her home in Truro on Cape Cod,
Mass. Her 2-year-old daughter was next to her, covered in blood but
unharmed. In 2005 DNA evidence identified Christopher McCowen, a local
trash collector, as the murderer. In 2006 McCowen was convicted and
sentenced to life without parole.
(SFC, 4/16/05, p.A5)(SFC, 11/17/06, p.A4)
2002 Feb, The Archdiocese of
Boston identified 80 priests as having abused children over the last 40
years.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A8)
2002 Mar 1, Under pressure from
prosecutors, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to turn over the names of
people allegedly molested by priests.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2002 Mar 12, Attorneys for the
Boston archdiocese agreed to pay $15-30 million to 86 additional
victims of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan.
(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 12, Cornel West, author
of "Race Matters," announced that he would leave Harvard for Princeton
due to a clash with Pres. Summers.
(SFC, 4/13/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 15, The Boston Marathon
was won by Rodgers Rop of Kenya for the men, 2:09:02, and Margaret
Okayo of Kenya for the women, 2:20:43.
(WSJ, 4/16/02, p.A1)
2002 May 2, The Rev. Paul Shanley,
a priest at the epicenter of the clergy sex abuse scandal, turned
himself in to authorities in San Diego to face charges in Massachusetts
of raping boys during the 1980s. Shanley pleaded innocent but was later
convicted of repeatedly raping one boy, and was sentenced to 12 to 15
years in prison.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2002 May 5, In Boston Cardinal Law
supported the Archdiocese decision to scuttle a multimillion settlement
with 86 people for some 15-30 million over sexual abuse because the
number of new cases had grown to over 150.
(SFC, 5/6/02, p.A1)
2002 May 13, In Baltimore Dontee
Stokes (26), a former altar boy, shot and seriously wounded Rev.
Maurice Blackwell (56), who had sexually abused him from age 9 to 13.
Stokes was acquitted of murder, but was sentenced to 18 months of home
detention on gun charges. In 2005 Blackwell was convicted of molesting
Stokes.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A3)(AP, 5/13/03)(SFC, 2/18/05, p.A7)
2002 May 19, Boston Cardinal
Bernard Law said in a letter distributed to parishes that he did not
become aware until 1993 of sexual abuse allegations against the Rev.
Paul Shanley.
(AP, 5/19/03)
2002 Jun 20, Paul Shanley (71), a
retired priest, was indicted in Cambridge, Mass., on charges of raping
4 children from 1979-1989. Shanley was convicted on 4 charges in 2005
and sentenced 12-15 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/21/02, p.A3)(SFC, 6/8/04, p.A3)(SFC,
2/16/05, p.A4)
2002 Jul 30, At Cape Cod, Mass. 46
pilot whales beached themselves a 2nd time one day after rescuers
managed to return most of a pod back to sea. All the animals died.
(SFC, 7/31/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 20, William Rosenberg
(86), founder of the Dunkin' Donuts chain, died in Mashpee, Mass.
(AP, 9/20/03)
2002 Nov 5, Mitt Romney, a Mormon
and Harvard graduate (business and law), was elected Republican
governor of Massachusetts. He had made a fortune as a venture
capitalist with investments in Domino’s and Staples.
(Econ, 9/30/06,
p.44)(www.rga.org/governors/state.aspx?St=MA)
2002 Nov 24, John Rawls (81),
philosopher, died in Boston. His work included "A Theory of Justice"
(1971), which advanced the concept of a social compact. The Rawls test:
would the best off accept the arrangements if they believed at any
moment they might find themselves in the place of the worst off."
(WSJ, 11/26/02, p.A1)(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A27)
2002 Dec 1, Sen. Kerry of
Massachusetts announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination
for president.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2002 Dec 3, Thousands of personnel
files released under a court order showed that the Archdiocese of
Boston went to great lengths to hide priests accused of abuse,
including clergy who allegedly snorted cocaine and had sex with girls
aspiring to be nuns.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2002 Dec 13, Pope John Paul II
accepted the resignation, due to sex abuse, of Boston's Cardinal
Bernard Law (71).
(SFC, 12/14/02, p.A1)(AP, 12/13/07)
2003 Apr 7, Pulitzer Prize winners
included Jeffrey Eugenides for fiction (Middlesex); Rick Atkinson for
history (An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa (1942-1943); and
Samantha Power for general nonfiction (A Problem from Hell: American
and the Age of Genocide”). The Boston Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for
public service for its coverage of the priest sex abuse scandal.
(SFC, 4/8/03, p.A2)(AP, 4/7/08)
2003 May 8, Elizabeth Neuffer
(46), an award-winning reporter for The Boston Globe, died in a car
accident in Iraq.
(AP, 5/10/03)
2003 Jul 1, Bishop Sean O'Malley
was named by Pope John Paul II the new archbishop of Boston, succeeding
Cardinal Bernard Law, who'd resigned in the wake of a clerical sex
abuse scandal.
(AP, 7/1/04)
2003 Aug 23, Former priest John
Geoghan (67), a convicted child molester, died after being attacked by
Joseph L. Druce (37), a fellow inmate, at the Souza-Baranowski state
prison in Shirley, Mass. Druce was convicted of murder in 2006.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.A1)(SFC, 1/26/06, p.A3)
2003 Aug 8, The Boston Roman
Catholic archdiocese offered $55 million to settle lawsuits stemming
from sex abuse by priests. The archdiocese later settled for $85
million.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2003 Sep 9, The Catholic
archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million to settle claims by
more than 550 people who said they were sexually abused by priests.
(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 27, A new US stamp
dedicated to Theodore Geisel (d.1991), creator of Dr. Seuss, was
introduced at the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in
Springfield, Mass.
(SFC, 10/16/03, p.E13)
2003 Nov 18, The Massachusetts
Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that a ban on same sex marriage is illegal.
Lawmakers were given 180 days to allow gay marriages.
(SFC, 11/19/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 23, Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno
(57), a regional Mafia boss, was killed in Springfield, Mass. In 2008
Frankie Roche (35), a low level Mafia member, admitted to the murder.
(SFC, 4/18/08, p.A4)
2003 Dec 25, Nicholas Mavroules
(74), former 7 term Mass. Congressman, died in Peabody, Mass.
(SFC, 12/27/03, p.A18)
2003 MIT introduced the Int’l.
Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.30)
2003 The population of
Massachusetts this year was about 6.4 million.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.32)
2004 Feb 4, A Massachusetts
advisory opinion of the state Supreme Court said gay couples had the
right to marry.
(WSJ, 2/5/04, p.A4)
2004 Mar 29, Massachusetts
lawmakers approved a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage and legalize civil unions, sending the issue to the next
legislative session.
(AP, 3/29/05)
2004 Apr 19, In the Boston
Marathon Timothy Cherigat of Kenya won for the men at 2:10:37;
Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won for the women at 2:24:27.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A1)
2004 May 25, Catholic church
officials said the Archdiocese of Boston would close 65 of 357 parishes
due to declining attendance and increased financial problems.
(SFC, 5/26/04, p.A5)(AP, 5/25/05)
2004 Jul 9, Geraldine Williams
(67) of Lowell, Mass., accepted a lump sum payment of $168 million for
her July 3 win in the $294 million lotto.
(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 26, The Democratic
National Convention opened in Boston with an estimated 35,000 visitors.
Speakers included Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Hillary and Bill Clinton.
(SFC, 7/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 27, Barack Obama,
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, delivered a speech at
the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Other speakers included
Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Ron Reagan, and Teresa Heinz Kerry.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jul 28, Democrats in Boston
made John Kerry their nominee for president as John Edwards, the
vice-presidential nominee, promised the country “hope is on the way.”
(SFC, 7/29/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 29, John Kerry gave his
acceptance speech as the Democratic presidential nominee before 15,000
supporters in Boston’s FleetCenter: “I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting
for duty.”
(SFC, 7/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul, Yuri Levintoff was
recruited by Boris Barshevsky, a Boston-area taxi driver, to help
organize paid protesters for rallies in NYC against Chechen
separatists. The rallies were then filmed by Russian state television.
(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)
2004 Aug 26, MIT named Yale
neuroscientist Susan Hockfield as its new president, the 1st woman to
ever hold that job.
(WSJ, 8/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 30, The 14th annual Ig
Nobel prizes were handed out at Harvard. Winners included the late
Frank Smith and his son Donald for their 1977 combover patent; Steven
Stack of Wayne State University and James Gundlach of Auburn University
won for their 1992 report on "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 20, Boston Red Sox fans
poured into the streets outside Fenway Park to celebrate their team's
victory over the New York Yankees. Victoria Snellgrove (21) died the
next day after a crowd control pellet hit her in the eye.
(AP, 10/21/04)(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)(SFC, 10/23/04,
p.A2)
2004 Oct 24, The Boston Red Sox
beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-2 for a 2-0 World Series lead.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2004 Oct 27, The Boston Red Sox
won the World Series over the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 in game 4. It was
Boston's sixth championship, but the first after 86 years of
frustration.
(AP, 10/28/04)
2004 Oct 28, Boston Red Sox fans
turned out by the tens of thousands near historic Fenway Park to
celebrate their World Series champion team, the city's first since 1918.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2004 Massachusetts changed its law
regarding a Senate vacancy and required a special election to fill
empty Senate seats within 145-160 days of a vacancy. The Democratic
legislature did not want Republican Gov. Mitt Romney to appoint a
fellow Republican to the fill John Kerry’s seat, if Kerry were to win
the presidential election.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.34)
2005 Feb 6, The New England
Patriots became a full-fledged dynasty with their third Super Bowl
victory in four years, beating the Philadelphia Eagles 24-21.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 15, Defrocked priest Paul
Shanley was sentenced in Boston to 12 to 15 years in prison on child
rape charges.
(AP, 2/15/06)
2005 Apr 18, The Boston Marathon
was won by Hailu Negusie of Ethiopia, 2:11:45; Catherine Ndereba of
Kenya led the women, 2:25:13.
(WSJ, 4/19/05, p.A1)
2005 May 7, MIT students held
their 1st convention for time travelers.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.75)
2005 May 9, In Hingham, Mass., the
bodies of two homeless men were found. They had likely been killed the
previous April. In 2007 Eric Snow (25) and James Winquist (23) were
accused of beating the 2 men to death with baseball bats.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A3)
2005 May 31, The Massachusetts
Legislature voted to override Gov. Romney’s veto of a bill easing
stem-cell research curbs.
(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 4, It was reported that
Larry Ellison, head of Oracle Corp., planned to create a database and
journal to track improvements in world health through a joint venture
with Harvard that would be accompanied by as much as $115 million. In
2006 Ellison decided against the donation due to the resignation of
Pres. Lawrence Summers.
(SFC, 6/4/05, p.C1)(SFC, 6/28/06, p.C1)
2005 Jun 9, The governor of
Massachusetts requested federal aid due to an unusually big red tide of
toxic algae that has crippled the state’s shellfish industry.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun, The board of MassMutual
Financial Group voted to fire CEO Robert O’Connell following an
investigation that revealed padding in his supplemental retirement
account and other allegations that involved a romantic affair with a
top female executive.
(WSJ, 8/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 21, Harvard scientists
said they have fused an adult skin cell with an embryonic stem cell in
a potentially dramatic development that could lead to the creation of
useful stem cells without first having to create and destroy human
embryos.
(AP, 8/22/05)(SFC, 8/22/05, p.A2)
2005 Sep 15, The Massachusetts
state Legislature voted to override Gov. Mitt Romney's veto of a
measure that will expand access to emergency contraception.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 22, In Massachusetts
Holli Strickland (33) died of gunshot wounds, along with her
grandmother Constance F. Young (71) in what police said was either a
double suicide or murder-suicide in Young's West Springfield apartment.
They had been released from jail 2 days earlier following charges of
severe abuse of Haleigh Poutre (11), who was hospitalized in a
vegetative state after her brain stem was partly sheared.
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/7jeol)
2005 Nov 22, Massachusetts signed
an agreement with Venezuela to obtain discounted home heating oil.
Democrat Rep. William Delahunt helped broker the deal.
(WSJ, 11/23/05, p.A14)
2005 Nov 25, Massachusetts’
attorney general said it is opening an investigation into several
supermarkets that opened on Thanksgiving in defiance of the state’s
Puritan-era blue laws.
(SFC, 11/26/05, p.C2)
2005 Dec 14, In Boston 4 men were
shot and killed in the basement of a home on Bourneside Street that was
set up as a music studio. The killings pushed Boston homicides for the
year to 71, the highest in a decade.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A6)
2005 Harvard Univ. and economics
Prof. Shleifer paid nearly $30 million to settle a civil suit brought
by the US government for violation of federal conflict of interest
rules for investments a decade earlier in Russia.
(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.A6)
2005 Pierre Omidyar, the founder
of eBay, and his wife, Pam, donated $100 million in stock to Tufts Univ.
(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W2)
2006 Jan 19, Lifeline Systems Inc.
announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Royal
Philips Electronics under which Philips will acquire Lifeline, a leader
in personal emergency response services. Royal Philips Electronics NV
paid $750 million for Massachusetts based Lifeline.
(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/334w4c)
2006 Jan 22, In Massachusetts the
bodies of Rachel (27) and 9-month-old daughter Lillian Entwistle were
found in their home in Hopkinton. Rachel was shot in the head and the
young baby in the body. They had been killed as much as 3 days earlier.
On Jan 27 Neil Entwistle (27) was seen leaving his parents home in
Worksop, Nottinghamshire, accompanied by two plain-clothes detectives.
He was soon extradited back to Massachusetts. In 2008 Entwistle was
convicted of murder.
(AP, 1/27/06)(SFC, 6/26/08, p.A2)
2006 Feb 2, In New Bedford, Mass.,
Jacob D. Robida (18) used a hatchet and a gun to attack 3 patrons at a
gay bar. On Feb 4 in Arkansas Robida shot himself after he killed a
Gassville police officer and a woman in his car. He died the next day.
(AP, 2/3/06)(AP, 2/5/06)(SFC, 2/8/06, p.A3)
2006 Feb 9, Neil Entwistle (27), a
British man, whose wife and daughter were found shot dead in their
Massachusetts home, was arrested in Britain and charged with murder.
(AFP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 21, Lawrence Summers,
president of Harvard Univ., announced his resignation effective at the
end of the academic year.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.A2)
2006 Feb 25, Portugal and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed an accord that could
lead to technology partnerships in the Iberian nation.
(AP, 2/25/06)
2006 Mar 30, The Massachusetts top
court said gay couples can’t marry in Massachusetts if they are from US
states where same-sex unions are prohibited.
(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 3, In Boston a 10-ton
construction platform collapsed and fell 13 stories killing 3 people on
Boylston St.
(SFC, 4/4/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 4, In Massachusetts
legislators passed a bill requiring all citizens to have health
insurance. Gov. Romney signed it on April 12. The cost of the plan was
estimated at $1 billion, about as much as the state spends on the
uninsured. A dearth of primary-care physicians threatened to undermine
the program.
(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.A1)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.35)(SFC,
4/12/06, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.B1)
2006 Apr 17, Robert Cheruiyot and
Rita Jeptoo pulled off a Kenyan sweep of the Boston Marathon.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2006 Apr 23, It was reported
that Massachusetts has decided to begin requiring doctors to state the
names of anyone testing positive for HIV.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A3)
2006 May 12, Jonathan Tisch (52),
co-chairman of Loews Corp., announced a donation of $40 million to
Tufts Univ., his alma mater.
(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W2)(www.tufts.edu/main.php?p=flash)
2006 May 13, In Boston, Mass.,
unbeaten Ricky Hatton of England dethroned World Boxing Association
welterweight champion Luis Collazo, lifting the title with a 12-round
unanimous decision in his welterweight debut.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 14, Maine's governor
declared a state of emergency in the southern most county, and the
governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire also declared states of
emergency as a 3-day deluge turned streets into rivers across New
England, flooding homes up to their door knobs, forcing dozens of
schools to close because the buses couldn't get through, and
threatening dams and communities as rivers rise.
(AP, 5/15/06)
2006 Jul 10, Falling concrete
slabs crushed a car inside one of Boston's troubled Big Dig tunnels,
killing Milena Delvalle (38) and tying up traffic with another shutdown
in the massive building project that has become a central route through
the city. In 2007 the family of Delvalle reached a $6 million
settlement with the epoxy supplier blamed for the accident. In 2008 the
family settled a wrongful death suit for over $28 million.
(AP, 7/11/06)(SFC, 7/12/06, p.A5)(SFC, 12/26/07,
p.A4)(SFC, 10/1/08, p.C5)
2006 Jul 13, The Massachusetts
Turnpike authority said it found as many as 240 potential defects in
ceiling bolts on Boston’s Big Dig tunnel. Gov. Mitt Romney filed
emergency legislation and called for the resignation of the head of the
Turnpike Authority in the wake of falling concrete slabs that killed a
woman on July 10.
(SFC, 7/14/06, p.A4)
2006 Jul 27, Matthew Amorello,
chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, resigned in the wake
of problems with Boston’s Big Dig tunnels.
(SFC, 7/28/06, p.A10)
2006 Oct 14, Former US Rep. Gerry
Studds (69) died at Boston Medical Center, several days after he
collapsed while walking his dog. He was the first openly gay person
elected to Congress (1972-1997).
(AP, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 29, In the northeast US
thousands of homes and businesses had no electricity as a storm system
blasted the region with winds gusting to more than 50 mph, knocking
over trees and a construction crane. The storm was blamed for at least
two deaths.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2006 Oct 30, Mass. Sen. John Kerry
told a California college audience that young people who didn't study
hard might "get stuck in Iraq," prompting harsh Republican criticism;
Kerry later said it was a botched joke against President Bush's
handling of the war.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2006 Nov 1, Senator John Kerry,
D-Mass., apologized to "any service member, family member or American"
offended by his "botched joke" about how young people might get "stuck
in Iraq" if they did not study hard and do their homework.
(AP, 11/1/07)
2006 Nov 8, US Democrats took over
Republican–held mansions in 6 states to boast 28 of the nation’s 50
governors. In Massachusetts Deval Patrick succeeded Mit Romney; in Ohio
Ted Strickland won over Kenneth Blackwell by 24 percent; Bill Ritter
won in Colorado.
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.39)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.31)
2006 Nov 22, Two explosions at a
chemical plant in Danvers, Mass., wrecked 25 homes and left nearly 400
people homeless. 10 people suffered minor injuries.
(SFC, 11/23/06, p.A4)
2006 Dec 10, Boston opened its new
$41 million Institute of Contemporary Art, designed by Diller Scofidio
+ Renfro architects.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.F3)
2007 Feb 11, Harvard Univ.
appointed Drew Gilpin Faust as its 28th and first female president.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb 13, Mitt Romney, former
one-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, officially entered the
2008 presidential race. In what amounted to a made-for-TV coming-out
tour, Romney announced his candidacy in Michigan, the place of his
birth. His father George Romney, a Michigan governor in the 1960s and
an AMC chief executive, made a short-lived attempt at the presidency
four decades ago.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Mashpee Wampanoag
Indians on Cape Cod, Mass., were recognized as a sovereign Indian
nation. They first submitted their petition for recognition in 1990.
This was the group that befriended the Pilgrims in 1620.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.37)
2007 Mar 13, In Boston Raymond
Echavarria (23) dragged his ex-girlfriend, Xiomara Rhodes (21) into an
elevator in the office building where she worked and ignited a can of
gasoline. Investigators treated the slaying as a murder-suicide.
(SFC, 3/16/07, p.A8)
2007 Apr 16, Robert Cheruiyot of
Kenya won his 3rd Boston Marathon in 2:14:13. Russia’s Lidiya
Grigoryeva won in 2:29:18.
(WSJ, 4/17/07, p.A1)
2007 May 9, Alfred D. Chandler
Jr., American historian, died in Massachusetts. He helped establish the
field of business history. His books included “Strategy and Structure:
Chapters in the History of the Industrial Revolution” (1962).
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.A8)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.91)
2007 Jul 1, Former Gov. Mitt
Romney’s compulsory health plan for Massachusetts went into force.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.30)
2007 Jul 26, A federal judge in
Boston ordered the government to pay a record nearly $102 million for
the FBI's role in the 1968 wrongful murder convictions of four men.
Judge Nancy Gertner powerfully condemned misconduct that she said ran
"all the way up to the FBI director."
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072700282.html)
2007 Sep 1, Clay Buchholz
threw a no-hitter in his second major league start, just hours after
being called up by the Boston Red Sox. Buchholz struck out nine, walked
three and hit one batter to give the Red Sox a 10-0 victory over
Baltimore.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2007 Sep 6, Alex (31), a gifted
African Grey parrot that could count to six, identify colors and even
express frustration with repetitive scientific trials, died at Brandeis
Univ., Mass., after 30 years of helping researchers better understand
the avian brain.
(AP, 9/12/07)(Econ, 9/22/07, p.103)
2007 Oct 2, Nasdaq agreed to
acquire the Boston stock Exchange for about $61 million.
(WSJ, 10/3/07, p.C3)
2007 Oct 21, The Boston Red Sox
won the American League championship in Game 7 of their series with the
Cleveland Indians, 11-2.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2007 Oct 28,
In Denver the Boston Red Sox swept to their second World Series
title in four years with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies in Game 4.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 29, Police in riot gear
cleared several large crowds gathered around Fenway Park in the early
morning after the Red Sox won their second World Series title in four
years.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2008 Jan 23, Bechtel Corp. and its
partner Parsons Brinckerhoff in Boston’s Big Dig announced an agreement
to pay $407 million to settle a government lawsuit and avoid criminal
charges over the 2006 collapse that left one woman dead.
(SFC, 1/24/08, p.C1)
2008 May 20, Massachusetts Sen.
Edward Kennedy (76) was diagnosed with a malignant bran tumor.
(WSJ, 5/21/08, p.A1)
2008 May 28, In Newton,
Massachusetts, a collision between two commuter trains killed driver
Terrese Edmonds (24). Passengers reported seeing Ms. Edmonds using a
cell phone moments before the collision.
(WSJ, 5/30/08, p.A2)
2008 Jun 12, The University of
Massachusetts rescinded an honorary law degree awarded 22 years ago to
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, calling his politics "egregious"
and his leadership an "assault on human rights."
(AP, 6/13/08)
2008 Oct 7, Harvard Univ. said
medical device billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, chairman of Swiss-based
Synthes Inc., had donated $125 million, the largest one-time gift in
the history of the school. In 2004 Wyss had donated $25 million to
support doctoral programs at Harvard.
(WSJ, 10/8/08, p.A6)
2008 Oct 17, Harvard Univ.
announced a gift of $45 million and 31 major works of art from 1936
alumna Emily Rauh Pulitzer for the Harvard Art Museum. It was the
largest gift in the history of the museum.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.E3)
2008 Nov 4, Massachusetts voters
passed Question 2, a measure to decriminalize the possession of less
than an ounce of marijuana, with 65% in support. Under the state
constitution the measure becomes law after 30 days.
(SFC, 11/7/08, p.A7)(Econ, 11/8/08, p.48)
2008 Dec 13, In New Hampshire
370,000 customers still had no electricity following a huge ice storm.
Utility crews worked through a night of hand-numbing cold in the
Northeast but they still had a long way to go before restoring power to
all of the more than 1 million homes and businesses blacked out by the
storm. Most of the outages were in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine
and New York.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2008 In Boston a biohacker
movement began when Jason Bobe co-founded a 2-member group called
DIYbio (do-it-yourself biology).
(SSFC, 12/20/09, p.A18)
2009 Jan 5, Former US
Representative Joseph P. Kennedy said Citgo Petroleum, the US refiner
owned by the Venezuelan government, planned to stop deliveries to his
Boston-based nonprofit, Citizens’ Energy, due to falling oil prices.
The stop order was removed 2 days later.
(WSJ, 1/6/08, p.A7)(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Feb 11, Massachusetts' top
securities regulator said the wife of accused Wall Street swindler
Bernard Madoff pulled $15 million out of a brokerage account only days
before her husband was arrested.
(Reuters, 2/12/09)
2009 Mar 28, In Milton,
Massachusetts, Samantha Revelus (17) was stabbed and killed by her
brother. Kerby Revelus (23) then decapitated his 5-year-old sister as
her birthday cake from the day before sat on the kitchen table. He then
turned on his 9-year-old sister, who called police. Responding officers
broke down the door and shot him dead. Sarafina was hospitalized with
defensive wounds to her hands and stab wounds in her abdomen and one of
her legs.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Apr 14, In Massachusetts
Julissa Brisman (26) was found dead at the Boston Marriott Copley
Place. On April 20 police arrested medical student Philip Markoff (22)
of Quincy, in the woman's death. Police believed Markoff may have been
involved in other crimes against women who also posted ads on
Craigslist.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, The 114th Boston
Marathon was won by Ethiopia’s Deriba Merga for the men and Salina
Kosgei of Kenya for the women.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 27, Five members of the
US Congress were arrested while protesting the expulsion of aid groups
from Darfur in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. The
included Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of
Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland and
Lynn Woolsey of California.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 May 13, Massachusetts
transportation officials banned nearly all mass-transit drivers from
carrying cell phones or other digitals assistants in response to a
trolley driver’s recent text message that cause a crash injuring nearly
50 people.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2009 May 23, It was reported that
millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New York,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia) have
died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)
2009 May 31, Phil Bolger (81),
Gloucester, Mass., boat designer, committed suicide. His 600-700 boat
designs included the famed Gloucester Gull (1961).
(SFC, 6/3/09,
p.B5)(www.smallboatforumtwo.com/forum7/30.html)
2009 Jun 30, Boston disbanded its
mounted police unit due to budget cuts. Founded in 1873 it was the
first mounted unit in the country.
(SFC, 6/29/09, p.A4)
2009 Jul 22, In Lynn,
Massachusetts, 6 boys, aged 7-15, used bricks to severely beat Damien
Merida (30), a Guatemalan immigrant, as he slept near railroad tracks.
(http://tinyurl.com/l6cuf3)(SFC, 9/17/09, p.A7)
2009 Jul 24, President Barack
Obama conceded his words, that a white police officer "acted stupidly"
when he arrested a black university scholar in his own home, were
ill-chosen. He invited both men to visit him at the White House, but
stopped short of publicly apologizing for his remark. Obama said he had
personally telephoned the two men, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates
Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley, in an effort to
end the rancorous back-and-forth over the issue. The case began on July
20, when word broke that Gates (58) had been arrested five days earlier
at the 2-story home he rents from Harvard.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 31, A jury ordered Joel
Tenenbaum (b.1983), a student at Boston Univ., to pay damages of
$675,000 for sharing 30 songs over the Internet. He was later ordered
to destroy his illegal music files — but a judge declined to force him
to stop promoting the activity.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Tenenbaum)(AP, 12/7/09)
2009 Aug 11, Eunice Kennedy
Shriver (88), the sister of President John F. Kennedy, died at a
Hyannis hospital. She carried on the family's public service tradition
by founding the Special Olympics and championing the rights of the
mentally disabled. Shriver organized the first Special Olympics in 1968
in Chicago.
(AP, 8/11/09)
2009 Aug 25, Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy (b.1932) of Massachusetts, died at his home on Cape Cod after a
yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was the last surviving brother
in an enduring political dynasty and one of the most influential
senators in history. His memoir “True Compass: A Memoir” was published
in September.
(AP, 8/26/09)(Econ, 9/19/09, p.97)
2009 Sep 22, The Massachusetts
state Senate approved a bill allowing the appointment of a temporary
replacement for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. The measure had passed
the House last week.
(SFC, 9/23/09, p.A10)
2009 Sep 24, Massachusetts’ Gov.
Deval Patrick named former Democratic Party chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr.
to temporarily fill the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat. The
appointment will let Kirk, who was close friends with the senator,
serve in the post until voters pick a permanent replacement in a Jan.
19 special election.
(AP, 9/24/09)
2009 Oct 1, The 19th annual Ig
Nobel Prizes were awarded at Harvard. The physics prize went to a study
of why pregnant women don’t tip over. The chemistry prize was awarded
to scientists who turned tequila into diamonds. The veterinary medicine
prize was given for finding that cows that have names make more milk
than those who remain anonymous. The medicine prize went to a physician
who, for fifty years, cracked the knuckles on only his left hand to
test his mother’s contention that knuckle-cracking causes arthritis.
(http://tinyurl.com/yc5pndy)
2009 Oct 21, US federal
prosecutors announced the arrest of Tarek Mehanna (27) of Sudbury,
Massachusetts. Prosecutors said he conspired to kill two prominent US
politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in US malls
and American troops in Iraq. Mehanna, a US citizen, had been arrested
in November and charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when
asked about the whereabouts of Daniel Maldonado, who is now serving a
10-year prison sentence for training alongside al-Qaida members to
overthrow the Somali government.
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Dec 2, Court documents filed
in Boston said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $40 million to
87,500 Massachusetts employees who claimed the retailer denied them
rest and meals breaks, manipulated time cards and refused to pay
overtime.
(AP, 12/2/09)
2010 Jan 19, In Massachusetts
Democrat Martha Coakley lost to Republican State Sen. Scott Brown (50)
in a special election slowing down President Barack Obama's agenda and
loosening the Democratic grip on the US Senate.
(AP, 1/19/10)(AP, 1/20/10)
2010 Jan 24, Daniel Kerrigan (70),
the father of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, died after a disturbance at
the family's Massachusetts home. Brother Mark Kerrigan (45) was charged
with assaulting the 70-year-old father.
(AP, 1/25/10)
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Subject = Massachusetts
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