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Deborah Sampson Performs in Boston
Deborah Sampson Performs in Boston
On this day in 1802, a performance of "The American Heroine" took place in a fashionable Boston theater. The audience watched spellbound as a middle-aged farmwife, dressed in the uniform of a Continental soldier, loaded...
Tupperware Inventor Born
Tupperware Inventor Born
On this day in 1907, Earl Tupper, inventor of Tupperware, was born. Raised in central Massachusetts, birthplace of the plastics industry, he was a compulsive tinkerer, inventing, among hundreds of other things, a fish-powered boat....
Worcester Puts Fosters' Home Up For Auction
Worcester Puts Fosters' Home Up For Auction
On this day in 1872, Worcester city officials put up for auction the home of Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster. The veteran abolitionists were once again sacrificing their personal well-being to protest an injustice. Ninety-nine...
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...
Julia Ward Howe Elected to American Academy of Arts
Julia Ward Howe Elected to American Academy of Arts
On this day in 1907, 89-year-old Julia Ward Howe became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Howe lived most of her long life in Boston, but it was in...
The Birth of a Nation Sparks Protest
The Birth of a Nation Sparks Protest
On this day in 1915 Boston's African American community protested the showing of the racist film The Birth of a Nation. When 800 black women gathered at a Baptist church, one speaker suggested that "if...
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...
Worcester Airport Opens
Worcester Airport Opens
On this day in 1927, two runways and two hangars opened for business at the new Worcester Airport. A week later, more than 30,000 people flocked to the official dedication. Stunt flyers, parachutists, and...
Last Elevated Train Runs in Boston
Last Elevated Train Runs in Boston
On this day in 2004, Boston's last elevated train pulled into North Station. For over a century, Bostonians had avoided the congested streets below by riding trains carried on huge steel tracks overhead. When the...
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,"...