Trending Moments
Indian Boys Arrive in Longmeadow
Indian Boys Arrive in Longmeadow
On this day in 1800, Thomas Thorakwaneken Williams arrived in Longmeadow with his two young sons, Eleazer and John. Thomas was the grandson of Eunice Williams, captured as a child during the 1704 raid on...
Chinese Workers Arrive in North Adams
Chinese Workers Arrive in North Adams
On this day in 1870, a train arrived in North Adams with 75 young men from China hired to replace striking shoe workers. Over 2,000 people watched as the men walked to the factory under...
Charlotte Forten Enters Salem Normal School
Charlotte Forten Enters Salem Normal School
On this day in 1855, Charlotte Forten passed the entrance examination for the Salem Normal School, one of four colleges recently established in Massachusetts to train teachers. She was the school's first black student. Eighteen...
Sumner Attacked in U.S. Senate
Sumner Attacked in U.S. Senate
On this day in 1856, Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina, viciously attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate. Three days earlier, in a passionate anti-slavery speech, Sumner...
Boston Celebrates First Evacuation Day
Boston Celebrates First Evacuation Day
On this day in 1901, the City of Boston officially celebrated Evacuation Day for the first time. In early March of 1776, Continental troops managed to move heavy cannon to the top of Dorchester Heights....
George McNeill Organizes Workers
George McNeill Organizes Workers
On this day in 1852, hundreds of mill workers at the Woolen Company in Amesbury walked out on strike. Fourteen-year-old George McNeill, who had worked in the carding room since he was ten, immediately organized...
Emily Greene Balch Born
Emily Greene Balch Born
On this day in 1867, Emily Balch was born in Jamaica Plain. Her parents' affluence and enlightened views allowed her to attend college at a time when few women did. She entered Bryn Mawr in...
Activists Erect Tent City in Boston
Activists Erect Tent City in Boston
On this day in 1968, hundreds of demonstrators occupied a parking lot in Boston's South End. Houses on the site had recently been demolished, and their occupants displaced. To protest this kind of "urban renewal,"...
Five Die in Boston Massacre
Five Die in Boston Massacre
On this day in 1770, Crispus Attucks, a black man from Framingham, and four other civilians were shot by British soldiers. Attucks worked on whaling ships and, between voyages, as a semi-skilled laborer around the...
Robert Goddard Launches Space Age
Robert Goddard Launches Space Age
On this day in 1926, Clark University physics professor Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid fuel rocket — and with it the space age. Standing in a snow-covered field in Auburn, Massachusetts, he watched...