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Massachusetts General Hospital Admits First Patient
Massachusetts General Hospital Admits First Patient
On this day in 1821, the Massachusetts General Hospital admitted its first patient, a 30-year-old sailor. More than a decade earlier, two Boston doctors had appealed to the city's "wealthiest and most influential citizens" to...
Blizzard Shuts Down Massachusetts
Blizzard Shuts Down Massachusetts
On this day in 1888, ordinary life in Massachusetts came to a standstill. One of the most destructive blizzards ever to strike the East Coast raged for 36 hours. Called "the White Hurricane," the storm...
Dr. Boylston Experiments with Smallpox Inoculation
Dr. Boylston Experiments with Smallpox Inoculation
On this day in 1721, Boston doctor Zabdiel Boylston took a gamble with his young son's life and inoculated him against smallpox. Puritan minister Cotton Mather had learned from one of his slaves that in...
Charlestown Convent Lies in Ruins
Charlestown Convent Lies in Ruins
On this day in 1834, the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown lay in ruins. The night before, a Protestant mob sacked it and burned it to the ground. The nuns who lived in the elegant building...
Abenaki Warriors Attack Groton
Abenaki Warriors Attack Groton
On this day in 1694, Abenaki warriors raided the frontier town of Groton, on the western edge of Middlesex County. Striking at daybreak, they killed 20 people and took 12 captives, most of them children....
Balloonist Takes First Aerial Photograph
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...
Lucy Terry Prince Composes Poem
Lucy Terry Prince Composes Poem
On this day in 1746, Lucy Terry Prince was among the residents of Deerfield present during an Abenaki raid on the village. Lucy, an enslaved woman, described the horrific event in "The Bars Fight," the earliest...
Woman's Rights Pioneer Lucy Stone Born
Woman's Rights Pioneer Lucy Stone Born
On this day in 1818, woman's rights pioneer Lucy Stone was born on a farm in West Brookfield. Her mother greeted the news that her sixth child was a girl by exclaiming, "Oh Dear! I...
Flu Epidemic Begins in Boston
Flu Epidemic Begins in Boston
On this day in 1918, two sailors housed at Boston's Commonwealth Pier reported to sickbay. The men were the first Americans stricken with a strain of influenza that would prove far more dangerous than the...
Fire Nearly Destroys Nantucket Town
Fire Nearly Destroys Nantucket Town
On this day in 1846, a fire began in a hat store on Nantucket's Main Street. In no time, it raced through town, consuming everything in its path. Barrels of whale oil were stored on...