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Matzeliger Demonstrates Revolutionary Machine
Matzeliger Demonstrates Revolutionary Machine
On this day in 1885, Jan Matzeliger demonstrated his invention — a machine that could finish 75 shoes in a 10-hour day. The most skilled craftsmen working by hand could turn out 50. An improved...
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...
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...
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...
Robert Cormier Born
Robert Cormier Born
On this day in 1925, author Robert Cormier was born into Leominster's tight-knit French-Canadian neighborhood, and he remained there for the rest of his life. After graduating from Fitchburg State University, he began a 30-year...