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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...
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...
Northampton Bank Receives Ransom Note
Northampton Bank Receives Ransom Note
On this day in 1876, a ransom note was sent to the Northampton National Bank. Just a month earlier, a notorious gang of New York thieves had managed to break through the bank's new security...
UMass Researchers Clone Calves
UMass Researchers Clone Calves
On this day in 1998, two researchers affiliated with the University of Massachusetts drew worldwide attention when they went public with a birth announcement. The new arrivals, named Charlie and George, were genetically-identical Holstein calves....
First Esperanto Society Formed
First Esperanto Society Formed
On this day in 1905, the first Esperanto Society in the United States was established in Boston. Invented by a Polish doctor in the 1880s, Esperanto was an entirely new language created to promote international...
Hemingway Room Dedicated at JFK Library
Hemingway Room Dedicated at JFK Library
On this day in 1980, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Ernest Hemingway's son Patrick dedicated the Hemingway Room at the recently opened John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. The Nobel-prize winning author and the...
Henrietta Leavitt Buried in Cambridge
Henrietta Leavitt Buried in Cambridge
On this day in 1921, Henrietta Leavitt, a scientist at the Harvard Observatory, was buried in Cambridge. Her premature death cut short a brilliant career as an astronomer. In the late nineteenth century, observatory director...
Governor Honors Activist Melnea Cass
Governor Honors Activist Melnea Cass
On this day in 1968, Governor John Volpe dedicated the Melnea Cass Swimming and Skating Rink in Roxbury. The new facility was intended to improve life in Boston's urban neighborhoods. It was named for a...
Fall River Church Locks Out Priest
Fall River Church Locks Out Priest
On this day in 1884, a Fall River newspaper reported that French Canadian Roman Catholic parishioners had locked their newly-appointed priest out of their church. When the priest finally gained entry to the building, he...
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...