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Senator Edward Brooke Born
Senator Edward Brooke Born
On this day in 1919, Edward Brooke, III, the first African American to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress, was born. A decorated veteran, he graduated from the BU School of Law in 1948 and...
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...
Oliver Wendell Holmes Born in Cambridge
Oliver Wendell Holmes Born in Cambridge
On this day in 1809, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge. The man who coined the phrase "Boston Brahmin," he was a true member of that class, and he entertained the nation with poems,...
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...
Hasty Pudding Club Forms at Harvard
Hasty Pudding Club Forms at Harvard
On this day in 1795, 21 Harvard students gathered in a dorm room and formed a secret social club to cultivate "friendship and patriotism." Members agreed to take turns providing a pot of hasty pudding...
Otis House Moved
Otis House Moved
On this day in 1925, workmen finished moving an historic Beacon Hill residence back from the brink of destruction. Cambridge Street was slated to be turned from a crooked cobblestone street into a wide thoroughfare,...
Massachusetts Audubon Society Makes First Land Purchase
Massachusetts Audubon Society Makes First Land Purchase
On this day in 1922, the Massachusetts Audubon Society purchased its first parcel of land. For $8,000, it acquired 43 acres in the town of Sharon — the core of the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary...
Missionary Opens School for Mohican Indians
Missionary Opens School for Mohican Indians
On this day in 1734, the Yale-trained missionary John Sergeant opened a school for Mohican Indian children in Great Barrington. About 50 members of the Housatonic tribe of the Mohicans joined four English families on...
Newbury Offers Wolf Bounty
Newbury Offers Wolf Bounty
On this day in 1704, the town of Newbury voted to pay a bounty to men who had killed two wolves on Plum Island. Wolves were a threat to the cattle, sheep, and pigs grazing...
Watertown-built Car Climbs Mt. Washington
Watertown-built Car Climbs Mt. Washington
On this day in 1899, Newton inventor F.O. Stanley took his wife Flora for a drive — into the record books. Leaving home in a steam-powered Locomobile, built in the Stanley brothers' Watertown shop, the...