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Massachusetts

state of the United States of America

68 dated entries naming Massachusetts, drawn from 59 separate years between 1616 CE and 2007 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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17th century

  • 1616Captain John Smith publishes his book A description of New England in London. Smith relates one voyage to the coast of Massachusetts and Maine, in 1614, and an attempted voyage in 1615, when he was captured by French pirates and detained for several months before escaping.source
  • 1623Zildjian begins the commercial manufacture of cymbals in Turkey. The company will still be operating, from Massachusetts, in the 21st century.source
  • 1629March 4 – Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a royal charter, and the colony is the first to be created in what will become the United States 150 years later, covering almost all of what will be the U.S. state of Massachusetts.source
  • 1635April 23 – Boston Latin School, the oldest school in what will become the United States of America, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • 1636The first American ancestor of John Adams, Henry Adams, emigrates to Massachusetts.source
  • 16368 September – New College founded at the English colony of Massachusetts; later renamed 'Harvard'.source
  • 1637July 23 – After a court battle, King Charles I of England hands over title to the North American colony of Massachusetts to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the founders of Plymouth Council for New England.source
  • 1646February 28 – Roger Scott is tried in Massachusetts for sleeping in church.source
  • 1651October 14 – Laws are passed in Massachusetts, forbidding poor people from adopting excessive styles of dress.source
  • 1671July 24 – Awashonks, the female sachem who leads the Sakonnet Indians in what is now the U.S. state of Rhode Island, signs a peace agreement with the English leaders of the neighboring Plymouth Colony (now part of Massachusetts), along with chiefs Totatomet, Tattacommett and Somagaonet.source
  • 1675June 14 – Colonial authorities of Rhode Island, Plymouth, and Massachusetts attempt a negotiation with Metacomet (King Philip), leader of the Wampanoags, and seek guarantees of fidelity from the Nipmuck and Narragansett tribes. The negotiations end after 11 days, closing on June 25.source
  • 1675July 16–24 – An envoy from Massachusetts attempts to negotiate with the Nipmuck tribe.source
  • 1676November 16 – A prison is founded on Nantucket Island, in the English colony of Massachusetts.source
  • 1679November 27 – A fire in Boston, Massachusetts, burns all of the warehouses, 80 houses, and all of the ships in the dockyards.source
  • 1686December 20 – Edmund Andros arrives in Boston to become the British Governor of the newly created Dominion of New England, which includes most of the what are now the U.S. states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and much of the eastern portion of New York. The unpopular Andros, who reigns as a dictator after being appointed by King James II, is driven out of office in 1689 after the overthrow of James, and the Dominion of New England is broken up into its constituent colonies.source
  • 1690September 25 – The only issue of Publick Occurrences is published in Boston, Massachusetts, before being suppressed by the colonial authorities.source
  • 1690October 6 – Massachusetts Puritans, led by Sir William Phips, besiege the city of Quebec; the siege ends in failure after six days.source
  • 1700June 8 (May 28 O.S.) – The legislature for the Province of Massachusetts Bay (the modern-day Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States) passes into law "An Act against Jesuits & Popish Priests" making a finding that Roman Catholic clerics have attempted to incite American Indians into a rebellion against the Crown, and declaring "That all and every Jesuit, Seminary Priest, Missionary, or other Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Person made or ordained by any Authority, Power or Jurisdiction derived, challenged or pretended from the Pope or See of Rome, now residing within this Province or any part thereof, shall depart from and out of the same, at or before the tenth day of September next, in this present year, One Thousand and Seven Hundred." The Province of New York enacts similar legislation later in the year.source

18th century

  • 1707Port Royal is attacked twice by the English from Massachusetts.source
  • 1712June 11 – Chatham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts is incorporated as a town.source
  • 1722July 25 – Father Rale's War (1722–1725) begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.source
  • 174711 February – At the Battle of Grand Pré, Col. Arthur Noble's detachment of British troops from Massachusetts, face off against a French and Mi'kmaq force under Nicholas Antoine Coulon de Villiers. Noble and around 70 of his soldiers were killed.source
  • 1755June 16 - Fort Beausejour, garrisoned by 400 Frenchmen, is surrendered to Col. Winslow, of Massachusetts, commanding 2,300, of whom 300 are regulars.source
  • 1755November 18 – The 1755 Cape Ann earthquake occurs in the vicinity of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, causing extensive damage.source
  • 1760March 20 – The Great Fire of Boston, Massachusetts, destroys 349 buildings and marks the biggest conflagration in the American colonies up to this time.source
  • 1772April 8 – Massachusetts legislator Samuel Adams persuades his colleagues to approve his plan for creating a Committee of Correspondence to begin a dialogue with the other American colonies concerning mutual problems with England.source
  • 1774January 27 – An angry crowd in Boston, Massachusetts seizes, tars, and feathers British customs collector and Loyalist John Malcolm, for striking a boy and a shoemaker, George Hewes, with his cane.source
  • 1785April 19 – The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cedes all of its claims to territory west of New York State to the United States Confederation Congress. The area will become the southern portions of Michigan and Wisconsin.source
  • 1786August 29 – Shays' Rebellion begins in Massachusetts.source
  • 1787February 4 – Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts fails.source
  • 1788February 6 – Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the sixth U.S. state.source
  • 1788February 6 – Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 6th U.S. state (see History of Massachusetts).source
  • 1789January 21 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts. The anonymous author is William Hill Brown.source
  • 1792The State Street Corporation is founded, in Boston, Massachusetts.source

19th century

  • 1809December 30 – Wearing masks at balls is forbidden in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • 1812March 26 – In the United States, the Boston Gazette prints a political cartoon coining the term Gerrymander, after former Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry's approval (on February 11) of legislation creating oddly shaped electoral districts, designed to help incumbents win re-election.source
  • 1812March 26 – The Boston Gazette prints a political cartoon coining the term "Gerrymander" after former Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry's approval (on February 11) of legislation creating oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win re-election.source
  • 1821September 18 – Amherst College is founded in Massachusetts.source
  • 1826October 7 – The first train operates over the Granite Railway in Massachusetts.source
  • 1830January 12–27 – Webster–Hayne debate: In the United States Congress, Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina debates against Daniel Webster of Massachusetts about the question of states' rights vs. federal authority.source
  • 1830January 12–27 – Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina debates the question of states' rights vs. federal authority with Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in the United States Congress.source
  • 1831January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • 1837June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.source
  • 1839November 27 – The American Statistical Association is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • 1848March 18 – The Boston Public Library is founded by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.source
  • 1848November 1 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, the Boston Female Medical School (which later merges with Boston University School of Medicine), opens.source
  • 1851January 23 – The flip of a coin, subsequently named the Portland Penny, determines whether a new city in the Oregon Territory will be named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.source
  • 1856May 22 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate, for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). Sumner is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovers; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.source
  • 1867July 17 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established as the first dental school in the United States.source
  • 1868January 6 – Asa Mercer and a number of new "Mercer Girls" sail from Massachusetts for the West Coast, arriving in Seattle on May 23.source
  • 1869May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.source
  • 1869July 20 – Children's Hospital Boston is founded by Dr. Francis Henry Brown and other Harvard Medical School graduates, as a 20-bed facility in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • 1872November 9 – Great Boston Fire of 1872: In Boston, Massachusetts, a large fire begins to burn on Lincoln Street (the 2-day disaster destroys about 65 acres of the city, 776 buildings, much of the financial district and causes US$60 million in damage).source
  • 1874May 16 – The Mill River dam collapses in Massachusetts, killing 139 people.source
  • 1875October 25 – The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given in Boston, Massachusetts, with Hans von Bülow as soloist.source
  • 1883February 28 – The first vaudeville theater is opened, in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • 1886March 20 – William Stanley Jr. demonstrates the first commercial alternating current generator and transformer system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.source
  • 1898November 26 – A two-day blizzard known as the Portland Gale piles snow in Boston, severely impacting the Massachusetts fishing industry and several coastal New England towns.source

20th century

  • 1912April 20 – Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts opens.source
  • 1922April 13 – The State of Massachusetts opens all public offices to women.source
  • 1942November 28 – Cocoanut Grove fire: A fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts, kills 491.source
  • 1948October 20 – Brandeis University is formally founded in Massachusetts.source
  • 1949June 22 – Elizabeth Warren, American academic and politician, U.S. Senator (D-Mass.) since 2013source
  • 1954May 26 – A fire on board the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bennington, off Narragansett Bay, Massachusetts, kills 103 sailors.source
  • 1969July 19 – Chappaquiddick incident: US Senator Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge into a tidal pond after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy does not report the accident for nine or ten hours.source
  • 1971June – Massachusetts passes its Chapter 766 laws enacting special education.source
  • 1990March 18 – Twelve paintings and a Shang dynasty vase, collectively worth $100 to $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts by two thieves posing as police officers.source

21st century

  • 2007January 31 – Boston, Massachusetts, United States faces a hoax bomb scare, as a result of LED placards of Ignignokt and Err from Aqua Teen Hunger Force being mistaken as an improvised explosive device.source

Named in the same entries