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Boston Holds First "Rat Day"
Boston Holds First "Rat Day"
On this day in 1917, the Boston Women's Municipal League held the first — and as it happened, only — Rat Day. Increasing numbers of rats infested neighborhoods ranging from the overcrowded North End to...
Boston Wheelmen Sponsor Nation's First 100-Mile Bicycle Race
Boston Wheelmen Sponsor Nation's First 100-Mile Bicycle Race
On this day in 1882, seven men took over 12 hours to cover the distance from Worcester to Boston in the nation's first 100-mile bicycle race. Boston was becoming the bicycle capital of America. Pedestrians...
Northfield Couple Launches U.S. Youth Hostel Movement
Northfield Couple Launches U.S. Youth Hostel Movement
On this day in 1934, Isabel and Monroe Smith opened the first U.S. youth hostel in Northfield. The young couple had discovered hosteling during a trip to Europe and had become devoted disciples of the...
Ted Shawn Theater Opens at Jacob's Pillow
Ted Shawn Theater Opens at Jacob's Pillow
On this day in 1942, the first theater in the nation dedicated exclusively to dance opened at Jacob's Pillow in Becket, a small town in the Berkshire Hills. The building was named for Ted Shawn,...
Boston Celebrates Opening of Aqueduct
Boston Celebrates Opening of Aqueduct
On this day in 1848, 300,000 people from all over New England gathered on Boston Common. They came to celebrate the completion of the city's first municipal water system. With the construction of an aqueduct...
Worcester Becomes a City
Worcester Becomes a City
On this day in 1848, the Governor of Massachusetts signed a charter giving the once-sleepy village of Worcester the legal status of a city. For over a century, Worcester's isolated location in the hilly center...
Eric Carle Museum Opens in Amherst
Eric Carle Museum Opens in Amherst
On this day in 2002, the nation's first museum of picture book art opened in Amherst. A decade earlier, children's book author and illustrator Eric Carle had visited a picture book museum in Tokyo and...
Foster Furcolo, State's First Italian American Governor, Born
Foster Furcolo, State's First Italian American Governor, Born
On this day in 1911, Foster Furcolo was born in New Haven. Raised in Connecticut and educated at Yale, Furcolo moved to Springfield after World War II. In 1948 he won a seat in the...
Elizabeth Porter Phelps Born
Elizabeth Porter Phelps Born
On this day in 1747, Elizabeth Porter was born in the Connecticut River Valley village of Hadley. Five years later, her father built the first house outside the town center. He called it "Forty Acres."...
Legislature Allows Establishment of Mount Auburn Cemetery
Legislature Allows Establishment of Mount Auburn Cemetery
On this day in 1831, the legislature granted the Massachusetts Horticultural Society permission to purchase land for use as an experimental garden and a rural cemetery. Located on the border of Cambridge and Watertown, the...