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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...
David Walker Found Dead
David Walker Found Dead
On this day in 1830, David Walker, a prominent and outspoken black man, was found dead in his Boston home. The year before he had written David Walker's Appeal To the Coloured Citizens of the...
First YMCA in the United States Organized in Boston
First YMCA in the United States Organized in Boston
On this day in 1851, a group of evangelicals from several Boston churches founded the first Young Men's Christian Association in the United States. Modeled on the YMCA in London, the chapter intended to safeguard...
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...
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...
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...
Explorer Gosnold Names "Cape Cod"
Explorer Gosnold Names "Cape Cod"
On this day in 1602, the English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold dropped anchor off the Massachusetts coast. While he and four others went ashore, the rest of the crew pulled in so many cod that they...
Police Find First Victim of "Boston Strangler"
Police Find First Victim of "Boston Strangler"
On this day in 1962, police discovered the body of the first victim of the "Boston Strangler." For the next two years, Boston would be paralyzed by fear as the strangling deaths of 13 women...
First Merriam-Webster Dictionary Published in Springfield
First Merriam-Webster Dictionary Published in Springfield
On this day in 1847, Charles and George Merriam of Springfield published the first edition of The American Dictionary of the English Language. Four years earlier, the brothers had decided to take a major risk....
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...