| 1524 | | 17 Jan:
Giovanni da Verrazanno sets sail from Madeira, Portugal to explore North America - from North Carolina north to Newfoundland.MM&P AJ |
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| 1602 | |
| | 28 May:
Bartholomew Gosnold establishes a settlement at Cuttyhunk Island.HoMV GoogleBooks |
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| 1620 | |
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| 1621 | |
| 1623/4 | |
| 1626 | |
| 1630 | |
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| 1630/1 | |
| 1631 | |
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| 1632 | |
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| 1635 | | 23 Apr:
Boston Latin School, the oldest school in America, is founded.BLS tBLS |
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| | 25 Aug:
The Great Colonial Hurricane plows through New England destroying anything in its path.NEHS HS |
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| 1636 | |
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| 1637 | | 1 May:
General Court is convened in Hartford and war is declared against the Pequots.SCW ICT |
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| | 26 May:
Colonists attack and destroy the Pequot village at Misistuck (Mystic).ZEP ICT |
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| 1638 | |
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| 1643 | |
| 1647 | |
| 1648 | |
| | 18 Oct:
The "Shoomakers of Boston" along with the coopers, form the first labor organization in America.jstor IA |
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| 1656 | |
| 1675 | |
| 1676 | |
| 1689 | | 17 May:
King William's War; England declares war on France which lasts until the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick.HoMA MB |
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| 1690 | |
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| 1691 | |
| 1692 | |
| | 29 Feb:
The first witchcraft accusations take place and arrest warrants are issued for Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.LoA WSU |
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| 1693 | |
| 1702 | |
| 1704 | |
| 1715 | |
| 1716 | |
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| 1717 | | 27 Feb:
A series of four successive snowstorms create the Great Snow of 1717.NEHS NWS |
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| 1721 | | 26 Jun:
During a smallpox outbreak in Boston, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston begins inoculating patients beginning with his own son.MassMoments CW |
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| 1722 | |
| 1744 | |
| 1755 | |
| 1758 | | 27 Jul:
British and colonial forces defeat French and Canadian forces at the Battle of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia.BB CTHist |
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| 1760 | | 20 Mar:
A "Great Fire" begins at a tavern in Boston and destroys about 350 homes, shops and warehouses by the time it is over.MassMoments BFHS |
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| 1770 | | 5 Mar:
The Boston Massacre. British troops kill five colonists.LoC NPS |
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| 1773 | |
| 1774 | |
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| 1775 | |
| | 18 Apr:
Paul Revere rides out to warn the colonists that the British troops were on the march.PRH LoC |
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| | 19 Apr:
The first battles of the American Revolution. British troops fight American Minutemen at Lexington, killing eight. The British then move to Concord where they again engage the colonials. By the end of the battle, 93 colonists are dead. The British, having lost 273, retreat to Boston.LoC NPS |
|
| | 17 Jun:
The Battle of Bunker Hill takes place.LoC Yale |
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| 1776 | |
| | 4 Jul:
The United States is founded when the Second Continental Congress declares its independence from Great Britain.USHistory USNA |
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| 1779 | |
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| 1780 | | 4 May:
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is founded.TiS AAoA&S |
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| | 19 May:
Smoke from forest fires cause The Dark Day of 1780.NEHS HI |
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| 1781 | |
| 1783 | |
| 1786 | | 29 Aug:
An armed uprising, Shays' Rebellion, begins in western Massachusetts when foreclosure processes are allowed to move forward against farmers who had previously served their country.STCC LH |
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| 1787 | | 3 Feb:
Shays' Rebellion is put down with the deaths of four of Shays' "Regulators" at Petersham.MassMoments AHC |
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| |
| | 17 Sep:
The U. S. Constitution is signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the Constitutional Convention.LoC CC |
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| 1788 | |
| 1791 | |
| |
| 1794 | |
| 1795 | |
| 1797 | | 21 Oct:
USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides", is launched.MassMoments UCM |
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| 1804 | |
| 1812 | | 11 Feb:
Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signs a bill that creates oddly-shaped voting districts in several parts of the state, the birth of "gerrymandering".MassMoments LoC |
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| 1816 | |
The previous year, Mt. Tambora erupted producing so much ash and gas the sunlight was blocked from warming the earth causing the "Year Without Summer".USGS |
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| 1820 | | 20 Nov:
The whaling ship Essex is rammed and sunk by a sperm whale 2,000 miles off the west coast of South America, inspiring the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville.W I R E D |
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| 1829 | | 2 Mar:
The Perkins School for the Blind is incorporated in Boston originally as New England Asylum for the Blind.MassMoments Perkins |
|
| | 17 Mar:
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society is organized with General Henry Dearborn elected its first president..GoogleBooks CA |
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| | 16 Aug:
The original "Siamese Twins", Chang and Eng Bunker, arrive in Boston.CC Muse |
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| 1835 | |
| 1839 | | 24 Feb:
William Otis receives a patent for his steam shovel, a device that will shape the world.Google Books MFSW |
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| 1844 | | 15 Jun:
Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanized rubber.MassMoments SciAm |
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| 1845 | |
| | 3 May:
Macon B. Allen becomes the first African American lawyer admitted to the bar in the U. S..Jurist HSC |
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| 1846 | | 10 Sep:
Elias Howe Jr. patents his sewing machine.ASME SI |
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| | 30 Sep:
Dentist William Morton uses ether to anesthetize a patient in Boston which begins its use for general anesthesia.W I R E D ASA |
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| 1847 | | 1 Oct:
Maria Mitchell is the first American to record a comet sighting.NEHS Nature |
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| 1850 | |
| 1851 | |
| 1852 | | 28 Apr:
The first municipal electric fire alarm system using call boxes with automatic signaling to indicate the location of a fire was placed into operation in Boston, Massachusetts.ETHW CI |
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| 1856 | |
| 1857 | |
| 1859 | |
| 1860 | |
| | 29 Jun:
The final stone is laid completing the Minot's Ledge Lighthouse, still in use today.US-L H2G2 |
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| 1869 | |
| 1872 | | 9 Nov:
A great fire destroys structures across 65 acres in the city of Boston.BFHS LoC |
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| 1874 | | 10 Feb:
Lewis Latimer, the son of slaves and an inventor who worked closely with Edison on the incandescent light bulb, receives his first patent - a railroad car water closet.MassMoments RtG |
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| 1875 | | 9 Feb:
The first train passes through the Hoosac Tunnel, at the time, the second longest tunnel in the world.HT MassMoments |
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| 1876 | | 2 Feb:
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which comes to be more commonly known as the National League is formed.Reds SABR |
|
| | 7 Mar:
Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.USNA PBS |
|
| | 10 Mar:
Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call, telling his associate "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you".LoC W I R E D |
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| |
| | 9 Oct:
Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson have the first "long distance" telephone conversation.Atlantic UILibs |
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| 1878 | | 12 Feb:
Fred Thayer, the captain of the Harvard baseball team, receives a patent for his invention - the catcher's mask.MLB NBHoF |
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| 1879 | |
| 1886 | |
| 1888 | | 11 Mar:
The Great Blizzard of March 1888 or the Great White Hurricane, hits the northeastern United States.HI LoC |
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| 1891 | |
| 1892 | | 15 Jan:
The first rules of basketball are published by Dr. James Naismith.USAB OCLC |
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| | 19 Apr:
Charles Duryea becomes the first American to build and sell a gasoline-powered automobile.Hemmings DPL |
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| | 4 Aug:
Lizzie Borden kills her father and stepmother with a hatchet.CM SIMag |
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| 1895 | | 11 Jun:
The first U. S. patent for a gasoline-driven automobile by a U. S. inventor was issued to Charles E. Duryea of the Duryea Motor Wagon Co. in Springfield.USNA HFM |
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| 1897 | |
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| 1898 | |
| 1900 | |
| 1903 | | 18 Jan:
The first two-way transatlantic wireless communication occurs.CapeCod TRC |
|
| | 1 Oct:
The first baseball World Series begins - the Boston Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates.MLB BA |
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| 1904 | |
| 1907 | |
| 1911 | | 25 Sep:
Ground is broken for Fenway Park in Boston.MLB |
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| 1912 | |
| | 20 Apr:
The Boston Red Sox play their first game at Fenway Park and defeat the New York Highlanders by a score of 7-6.MLB B-R |
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| 1914 | | 27 May:
The Eastern States Exposition, better known as the Big "E", is incorporated.MassMoments Academia |
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| 1918 | | 7 Nov:
Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard demonstrates tube-launched solid-propellant rockets at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, the forerunners to the bazooka.ESA AFHF |
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| 1919 | | 15 Jan:
A tank of molasses ruptures in Boston's North End killing 21 people - the Great Molasses Flood.MassMoments SIMag |
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| 1920 | |
| 1926 | |
| 1927 | | 23 Aug:
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti die in the electric chair.ZEP MA |
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| 1928 | | 12 Oct:
A young polio sufferer at Children's Hospital in Boston becomes the first person to use the iron lung artificial respirator.W I R E D BMag |
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| 1930 | | 12 Aug:
Clarence Birdseye receives a patent for the production of quick-frozen fish.MassMoments npr |
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| 1936 | |
| 1938 | |
| 1942 | |
| 1945 | | 28 Jul:
A B-25 Mitchell bomber, flying from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to LaGuardia Airport in New York City, crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 people. NYCR&I npr |
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| | 6 Dec:
The microwave oven is invented by Percy Spencer of the Raytheon Corporation.NASA Web+ |
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| 1946 | |
| 1948 | | 24 Dec:
The first completely solar heated house, the Peabody house in Dover, Massachusetts, is ready for occupancy.TiS OTD |
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| 1950 | |
| 1952 | | 15 Jul:
The first transatlantic helicopter flight begins.RH PP |
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| 1953 | |
| 1954 | | 23 Dec:
The first successful human organ transplant occurs.npr NIH |
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| 1955 | | 19 Aug:
Hurricane Diane becomes the first storm to top $1 billion in damages in the U. S..NEHS NWS |
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| 1956 | | 25 Jul:
The Stockholm rams the Andrea Doria about 50 miles south of Nantucket.MassMoments CIMM |
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| 1958 | | 10 Feb:
MIT's Lincoln Laboratory bounces radar waves off Venus from their facility at Millstone Hill in Westford, Massachusetts.NASA Space |
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| 1961 | |
| 1963 | | 22 Nov:
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.JFKLib USNA |
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| 1965 | | 9 Nov:
The Northeast Blackout of 1965 is caused by human error.SIMag NEHS |
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| 1968 | | 17 Feb:
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.HoopHall ESPN |
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| 1969 | | 18 Jul:
Ted Kennedy drives his car of a bridge at Chappaquiddick, killing Mary Jo Kopechne.AH SIMag |
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| 1973 | |
| 1975 | |
| 1978 | |
| | 27 Jun:
The Gillette Company receives a patent for the erasable pen.Justia USPTO |
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| 1981 | |
| 1990 | | 18 Mar:
Overnight, 13 works of art, worth about $300 million in total, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.SIMag ISGM |
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| 1991 | | 30 Oct:
The "Perfect Storm" hits the North Atlantic.NPS Weather |
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| 1992 | | 18 Aug:
Basketball player Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics retires.B-R NBA |
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| 2001 | |
| 2002 | |
| 2003 | |
| 2004 | | 4 Feb:
Facebook is founded by Mark Zuckerberg.Facebook FV |
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| |
| | 27 Oct:
The Boston Red Sox break the curse of the Bambino and win the World Series for the first time in 86 years.Boston.com SABR |
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| 2012 | | 29 Oct:
Hurricane Sandy becomes Superstorm Sandy after moving up the east coast of the U. S. and takes a left turn towards shore that devastates many of the communities along the mid-Atlantic, especially New York and New Jersey.NASA LiveScience |
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| 2013 | | 15 Apr:
Two bombs detonate within seconds of each other at the finish line of the Boston Marathon killing 3 people and injuring more than 140.TIME DNI |
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Massachusetts
