Search Results


Brookline Amateur Wins U.S. Open

September 19, 1913
September 19, 1913

Brookline Amateur Wins U.S. Open

On this day in 1913, at The Country Club in Brookline, 20-year-old Francis Ouimet became the first amateur to win the U.S. Open Golf Tournament. Growing up in an immigrant family across the street from...

First Newspaper Published in the Colonies

September 25, 1690
September 25, 1690

First Newspaper Published in the Colonies

On this day in 1690, Boston printer Benjamin Harris produced the first issue of Publick Occurrences, the first newspaper published in Britain's North American colonies. Readers were enthusiastic, but the governor was not. Under British...

Maria Mitchell Discovers Comet

October 1, 1847
October 1, 1847

Maria Mitchell Discovers Comet

On this day in 1847, 29-year-old Maria Mitchell stood on the roof of her parent's Nantucket home, focusing her telescope on what she believed to be a faraway star. Suddenly she realized that the blurry...

Shoppers' World Launches Mall Era

October 5, 1951
October 5, 1951

Shoppers' World Launches Mall Era

On this day in 1951, Shoppers' World in Framingham opened for business. The first suburban shopping mall in the Northeast, and only the second in the country, the complex was a revolutionary design. Anchored by...

Balloonist Takes First Aerial Photograph

October 8, 1860
October 8, 1860

Balloonist Takes First Aerial Photograph

On this day in 1860, Boston newspapers carried an advertisement for an extraordinary event: photographer James Wallace Black would photograph Boston from a hot-air balloon hovering over the city. Black accomplished this well-publicized feat five...

Roger Williams Banished

October 9, 1635
October 9, 1635

Roger Williams Banished

On this day in 1635, Puritan minister Roger Williams was found guilty of spreading "newe & dangerous opinions" and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Before leaving England in 1630, Williams had seen heretics whipped,...

Boston Doctors Use First Iron Lung

October 12, 1928
October 12, 1928

Boston Doctors Use First Iron Lung

On this day in 1928, Children's Hospital in Boston was the scene of the first use of an "iron lung." Developed by a young Harvard doctor, it was little more than a galvanized iron box,...

Margaret Marshall Appointed to Supreme Judicial Court

October 14, 1999
October 14, 1999

Margaret Marshall Appointed to Supreme Judicial Court

On this day in 1999, Margaret Marshall became the first woman appointed Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The oldest court in the Western Hemisphere, the SJC was established in 1693 in the...

Boston Dentist Demonstrates Ether

October 16, 1846
October 16, 1846

Boston Dentist Demonstrates Ether

On this day in 1846, a crowd gathered in the operating theater at Massachusetts General Hospital. A Boston printer with a tumor on his jaw lay on the table. Curious and skeptical physicians and...

First Missionaries Leave for Hawaii

October 23, 1819
October 23, 1819

First Missionaries Leave for Hawaii

On this day in 1819, a crowd gathered on a Boston wharf to bid farewell to the first Protestant missionaries bound for Hawaii. Among them were seven Massachusetts couples, four of them recently married. After...

Mass Moments is a project of Mass Humanities, whose mission is to support programs that use history, literature, philosophy, and the other humanities disciplines to enhance and improve civic life throughout the Commonwealth.

Please consider helping us towards our goals with a donation today.

Interested in sponsoring Mass Moments?

Please calculate 9 plus 4.