109 Fun Facts About Massachusetts

Massachusetts' official name uses which word instead of 'State'?

Commonwealth: Massachusetts is formally the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, so even its criminal charges are brought in the name of the Commonwealth.

Which state nickname belongs to Massachusetts?

The Bay State: the nickname runs so deep that state law makes 'Bay Staters' the official name for its citizens.

Massachusetts takes its name from an Indigenous people whose name is often translated as what?

Near the great hill is one of several renderings, pointing to Great Blue Hill near Boston; an epidemic around 1617 had devastated the Massachusett before the Puritans arrived.

Before stepping ashore in 1620, the Pilgrims signed which agreement to govern themselves?

The Mayflower Compact: they had landed outside the Virginia territory they were bound for, and some passengers argued that no one had power to command them.

Which Wampanoag chief made a peace treaty with Plymouth Colony in 1621?

Massasoit: he kept that alliance, yet his son Metacom, known to the English as King Philip, later led a war against the colonists.

Boston was founded in 1630 on which peninsula?

Shawmut: the Puritans camped at Charlestown moved there after the lone settler William Blackstone invited them to share its natural spring.

Which accused man in the 1692 Salem witch trials was pressed to death with stones for refusing to stand trial?

Giles Corey: slowly crushed under stones, he is said to have answered his torturers with 'More weight.'

Which enslaved woman in minister Samuel Parris's household was one of the first accused at Salem in 1692?

Tituba: though she was never tried, Parris refused to pay her jail fees, so she was sold to cover them.

Which laws did Parliament pass to punish Boston after its Tea Party?

The Intolerable Acts: one shut Boston's port until the tea was paid for, and colonists answered by convening the First Continental Congress.

Some of the men who dumped tea into Boston Harbor in 1773 disguised themselves as what?

Mohawk warriors: the choice was symbolic, and apart from the tea, the only property they damaged was a padlock.

Which 1775 battles fought in Massachusetts began the Revolutionary War?

Lexington and Concord: British troops marched from Boston to seize military supplies stored at Concord, and the first shots came on Lexington's green.

Massachusetts ratified the Constitution while recommending amendments, a compromise that paved the way for what?

The Bill of Rights: James Madison, who had at first opposed a bill of rights, went on to introduce the amendments in Congress.

Which 1786-87 Massachusetts uprising tried to seize the federal armory at Springfield?

Shays' Rebellion: the revolt of indebted farmers fed the push for a stronger national government at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

Which state was part of Massachusetts until it separated in 1820?

Maine: Congress admitted it as a free state alongside slave-state Missouri, so the Missouri Compromise kept free and slave states in balance.

Which Black Massachusetts regiment of the Civil War was depicted in the 1989 film Glory?

The 54th Infantry: one of the first Black regiments in the Union army, it led the July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, where its commander Robert Gould Shaw was killed.

In 2004 Massachusetts became the first US state to do what?

Legalize same-sex marriage: seven couples who had been refused licenses sued, and after the state's highest court sided with them, weddings began May 17, 2004.

Which two US presidents named Adams were born in Massachusetts?

John and John Quincy: after losing the White House, John Quincy went back to Congress and served in the House for Massachusetts until his death.

What is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States?

Harvard: John Harvard didn't found it; the Puritan clergyman left the college money and his library, and it was named for him.

Boston Latin, founded in 1635, holds what national distinction?

Oldest public school: five signers of the Declaration of Independence studied there, but Benjamin Franklin left without graduating.

Boston's Tremont Street line, opened in 1897, was the first what in the nation?

Subway: it was dug so streetcars could leave Tremont Street's traffic-clogged surface and run underground instead.

In January 1919, a wave of what killed 21 people in Boston's North End?

Molasses: the victims' class-action lawsuit against the tank's owner became a milestone on the road to modern corporate regulation.

Boston's Back Bay neighbourhood was created how?

By filling in tidal marshland: a mill dam had cut the basin off from the tides, and the trapped water became a health hazard.

What is the nickname of Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project?

The Big Dig: it moved the elevated Central Artery into tunnels, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway park now fills the space the highway left.

Which sport was invented at a YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891?

Basketball: James Naismith needed an indoor game to keep students busy through the long New England winter, so he hung up two peach baskets as goals.

Volleyball was invented in 1895 in which Massachusetts city?

William G. Morgan, director of the Holyoke YMCA, devised the game in 1895 as a gentler indoor game for older members and first called it 'mintonette'.

The Celtics' 2024 title broke a tie for the most NBA championships with which rival?

Los Angeles Lakers: when Boston beat them in the 1969 Finals, the Lakers' Jerry West was named the series MVP anyway.

Which Celtics star became the NBA's first Black head coach while still playing?

Bill Russell: Tom Heinsohn had turned the job down, then took it himself once Russell retired.

What is the name of the famous left-field wall at Fenway Park?

The Green Monster: its scoreboard is worked by hand, with operators inside the wall sliding the number plates into place.

The lone red seat in Fenway's right-field bleachers marks what?

Ted Williams hit it in 1946.

New England's NFL team began in 1959 as a charter member of which league?

The American Football League: the team joined the NFL only when the two rival leagues merged.

The Boston Marathon, first run in 1897, is traditionally held on which state holiday?

Patriots' Day: the first race, run on April 19, 1897, was inspired by the marathon at the 1896 Athens Olympics.

What is the highest point in Massachusetts?

Mount Greylock: its summit drew writers including Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, who all wrote about the mountain.

Since 1914, most of Cape Cod has been separated from the mainland by what?

A canal: it opened in 1914 as a private toll waterway, and the federal government later bought it and rebuilt it in the 1930s.

Who coined the name Cape Cod in 1602?

Bartholomew Gosnold: what he learned on that New England voyage shaped his plans for the Virginia colony he later helped found at Jamestown.

Which two islands off Cape Cod does the Steamship Authority's ferry service link to the mainland?

Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket: in Moby-Dick, Ishmael goes to Nantucket to sign aboard Captain Ahab's whaling ship, the Pequod.

Which Massachusetts poet published only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems during her lifetime?

Emily Dickinson: the handful of poems printed while she lived all appeared anonymously, most under titles her editors added.

Henry David Thoreau built the cabin where he lived for two years on land owned by which friend?

Ralph Waldo Emerson: for all Walden's praise of self-reliance, Thoreau's mother sometimes did his laundry while he lived at the pond.

Which children's author, born Theodor Geisel, came from Massachusetts?

Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield in 1904; the city's Mulberry Street gave his first book its title, and a sculpture garden there honours him.

Which global doughnut chain was founded in Massachusetts in 1950?

Dunkin' Donuts: Bill Rosenberg's shop began as the Open Kettle, and his executives came up with the catchier name two years later.

The chocolate chip cookie is generally credited to which Massachusetts hotelier?

Ruth Graves Wakefield: as her recipe spread and Nestlé's chocolate sales jumped, she let the company print it on its packaging.

Massachusetts' official dessert, a custard-filled cake, is credited to which Boston hotel's chef?

The Parker House: Boston cream pie became the state dessert after a civics class at Norton High School sponsored the bill.

Worcester artist Harvey Ball is credited with drawing which famous symbol in 1963 for an insurance company's staff buttons?

The smiley face: his total fee was $45, and he never trademarked the design.

The city of Lowell was founded in the 1820s as a planned centre for which industry?

Textiles: the mills lured young women off New England farms and housed these 'mill girls' in boardinghouses run under strict rules.

Which ancestry group do the most Massachusetts residents report?

Irish: refugees from Ireland's Great Famine poured into Boston in the late 1840s, crowding into waterfront neighborhoods like the North End.

As farmland turned back into forest, which large animal, gone since the 1700s, returned to Massachusetts in the 1980s?

Moose: settlers' hunting and forest clearing had wiped them out, and they wandered back from neighboring states as the woods regrew.

Which Speaker of the House from Massachusetts served the longest unbroken stretch in the chair?

Tip O'Neill: though a Democrat, he teamed up with Republican President Ronald Reagan to pass major bipartisan laws in the 1980s.

Which Boston building, nicknamed the 'Cradle of Liberty', hosted protest meetings before the Revolution?

Faneuil Hall: merchant Peter Faneuil gave the town the building as a marketplace, with a meeting hall upstairs.

Who became Massachusetts' first royal governor under the 1691 charter?

William Phips: he set up the special court that tried the Salem accused, then dissolved it months later and pardoned those still in jail.

Which 1647 Massachusetts law required towns to appoint a teacher or open a grammar school?

The Old Deluder Satan Act: it said Satan's chief project was keeping people from reading the Scriptures, so towns of 50 households had to hire a teacher.

Who in 1974 became the first openly lesbian or gay candidate elected to any US state legislature?

Elaine Noble: her win helped convince Minnesota state senator Allan Spear that he could come out as gay without being pushed to the margins.

What is the Massachusetts state legislature formally called?

The General Court: in colonial times it didn't only make laws; it also sat as a court, hearing appeals.

Which Republican senator did John F. Kennedy unseat in Massachusetts' 1952 Senate race?

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: eight years later he lost to Kennedy again, this time as Richard Nixon's running mate in the 1960 presidential race.

Which Massachusetts county covers all of Cape Cod?

Barnstable County: as Massachusetts abolished many county governments from 1997, it survived, having remade itself as a regional government.

Four Massachusetts towns were removed from the map to build which reservoir?

Quabbin Reservoir: along with the Wachusett Reservoir, it now supplies drinking water to Boston and dozens of nearby cities and towns.

Which Berkshire town is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum?

Stockbridge: Norman Rockwell himself helped found the museum in 1969, while he was still living in the town.

Which Abenaki sagamore strode into Plymouth in March 1621 and announced 'Welcome, Englishmen!'?

Samoset: he had picked up broken English from fishermen off Monhegan Island, and days later he came back with Squanto, who had lived in England.

Which Plymouth Colony governor wrote the history Of Plymouth Plantation?

William Bradford: his manuscript vanished during the Revolution, turned up with an English bishop, and came home to Massachusetts in 1897.

At Plymouth's 1621 harvest feast, what did the Wampanoag guests go out and hunt, according to a colonist's letter?

Deer: Edward Winslow wrote that some ninety men came and were feasted for three days, and they killed five deer for the colony's leaders.

In which Dutch city did the Pilgrims' congregation live for about a decade before sailing to America?

Leiden: they had fled England for Dutch religious tolerance, stopping first in Amsterdam before settling in Leiden for about a decade.

Which group topped the UK chart in 1967 with a song titled Massachusetts before ever visiting the state?

The Bee Gees just liked the sound of the name, with its repeated letter S; the song's homesick narrator has left to join the hippies in San Francisco.

Which writer of gothic tales was born in Boston in 1809 to two actors and raised in Virginia?

Edgar Allan Poe never quite forgot his birthplace: his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was credited only to a Bostonian.

Which Founding Father was born on Milk Street in Boston in 1706 and ran away from the city at 17?

Benjamin Franklin fled his brother's Boston print shop for Philadelphia, yet Massachusetts still claims him: state law names him its official inventor.

Which appliance did Raytheon's Percy Spencer invent in Massachusetts after a radar set reportedly melted his candy bar?

The microwave oven was no countertop gadget at first: the first commercial model, in 1947, stood about six feet tall and weighed about 750 pounds.

Which American folk hero, born a Chapman in Leominster in 1774, is the official folk hero of Massachusetts?

Johnny Appleseed made his name far from Massachusetts, planting apple nurseries across Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana and returning every year or two to tend them.

Which Nabisco cookie, first mass-produced by the Kennedy Biscuit company in 1891, takes its name from a Boston suburb?

The Fig Newton was named by plant manager James Hazen after Newton, Massachusetts, where Nabisco held the cookie's 100th-anniversary celebration in 1991.

Which future president, who made his fortune in the Texas oil business, was born in Milton, Massachusetts, in 1924?

George H. W. Bush grew up out of state but came back to Massachusetts as a teenager to attend Phillips Academy in Andover.

Which Fall River, Massachusetts, woman was tried and acquitted in 1893 of murdering her father and stepmother?

Lizzie Borden stayed in Fall River after the verdict, buying a house with her sister Emma in the wealthy Highlands district, where she lived out her life.

Which NBC sitcom used the Bull & Finch Pub on Boston's Beacon Street for the exterior shots of its bar?

Cheers made the pub so famous that in 2002 the Bull & Finch took the show's name; the producers had first picked it out of a phone book.

Which slugger did Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sell to the New York Yankees in the winter of 1919–20?

Babe Ruth's sale became the Curse of the Bambino: Boston, champions in 1918, did not win another World Series until 2004.

Which nickname did the frigate USS Constitution, berthed at Boston's Charlestown Navy Yard, earn in the War of 1812?

Old Ironsides earned the name by capturing HMS Guerriere in 1812, and public affection for the ship repeatedly saved her from being scrapped.

Which Boston landmark's steeple held the two signal lanterns on the night of Paul Revere's ride in April 1775?

Old North Church, built in 1723, is the oldest church building standing in Boston; one lantern would have meant troops marching by land, while two meant boats.

Which Boston physician, who sent Paul Revere on his midnight ride, was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775?

Joseph Warren had just been made a major general but chose to fight as a private soldier, and died when the British stormed the redoubt on Breed's Hill.

Which sailor of African and Native descent is traditionally seen as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre?

Crispus Attucks, a whaler and dock worker, took two ricocheted bullets in the chest and is remembered as the first American to die in the Revolution.

Which downtown park in the Massachusetts capital, set aside in 1634, is the oldest city park in the United States?

Boston Common began as shared pasture: grazing was capped at 70 cows in 1646, and cattle were only banned outright in 1830.

Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor is home to which American first, built there in 1716?

The lighthouse, Boston Light, was blown up by withdrawing British forces in 1776 and rebuilt in 1783 to the same 75-foot height.

In which Massachusetts town bordering Boston was President John F. Kennedy born in May 1917?

Brookline's 83 Beals Street was both his birthplace and his childhood home, and the house is preserved as a National Historic Site.

In which Massachusetts town does New England's NFL team play its home games at Gillette Stadium?

Foxborough, about 22 miles southwest of Boston, has been the team's home since 1971, when the franchise left the city and took the whole region's name.

Which heavyweight champion, raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, retired in 1956 without ever losing a professional fight?

Rocky Marciano, nicknamed the Brockton Blockbuster, built his punch as a boy on a stuffed mailbag hung from a tree in his back yard.

Which Salem-born assistant to Alexander Graham Bell received the very first telephone call in 1876?

Thomas Watson heard his own name as the first words ever spoken over a telephone; Bell was calling him in from the next room.

Which Neil Diamond song has been played at Fenway Park in the middle of the eighth inning since 2002?

Sweet Caroline was sung live at the park by Neil Diamond himself on opening night in 2010, and he led the crowd again days after the 2013 marathon bombing.

Which Patuxet man, who learned English in captivity, taught Plymouth's colonists to sow and fertilise native crops?

Squanto had come home in 1619 to find his people wiped out by an epidemic, and the newcomers built their settlement on the site of his old village.

Which company, founded by Edwin Land in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1937, launched the first instant camera in 1948?

Polaroid takes its name from Land's polarizing material: before cameras, the firm's first market was polarized sunglasses.

Which Massachusetts senator was the Democratic Party's nominee for president in the 2004 election?

John Kerry first won statewide office in 1982 as lieutenant governor, the running mate of Michael Dukakis, who was himself the party's nominee in 1988.

Which 1941 picture book set in Boston's Public Garden is the official children's book of Massachusetts?

Make Way for Ducklings grew out of Robert McCloskey's art-student days feeding the ducks there; a statue of the mother duck and her eight ducklings stands in the garden.

In which harbor at the tip of Cape Cod did the Pilgrims first drop anchor in 1620, before reaching Plymouth?

Provincetown remembers the landing with its Pilgrim Monument; winter seas had beaten back two days of attempts to sail south before the ship took shelter there.

Which author wrote and set the novel Little Women at Orchard House, her family's Massachusetts home?

Louisa May Alcott wrote the book in her own room in 1868, working at a special shelf desk that her father had built for her.

Which Massachusetts governor won national fame during the 1919 Boston police strike and was president four years later?

Calvin Coolidge made his name by rebuking union leader Samuel Gompers during the strike; a year later he was on the Republican ticket as vice president.

Which Boston institution lost 13 works of art, including a Vermeer, to thieves in the early hours of March 18, 1990?

The Gardner Museum keeps the empty frames hanging where the paintings were, as placeholders for their return; Vermeer's The Concert was among the works taken.

Which minister, convicted of sedition and heresy in Massachusetts in 1635 and banished, went on to found Providence?

Roger Williams still helped the colony that had exiled him: when war loomed he became its eyes and ears, and talked the Narragansetts out of joining the Pequots.

Which women's suffrage leader was born into a Quaker family in Adams, Massachusetts, in February 1820?

Susan B. Anthony was collecting anti-slavery petitions at 17, and in 1872 she was arrested in Rochester, New York, for casting a vote when only men could.

Worcester-born physicist Robert Goddard launched the world's first what from a farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, in 1926?

The liquid-fueled rocket burned gasoline and liquid oxygen and took off from his Aunt Effie's farm; the launch site is a National Historic Landmark.

Which Massachusetts university made Jumbo the elephant its mascot after P. T. Barnum donated the animal's stuffed hide?

Tufts lost the hide to a fire in 1975, and ashes believed to hold the elephant's remains are kept in a peanut butter jar in the athletic director's office.

Which Suffolk County holiday, sharing March 17 with Saint Patrick's Day, marks British troops leaving Boston in 1776?

Evacuation Day recalls the end of an 11-month siege: Washington's army fortified Dorchester Heights with cannons captured at Ticonderoga, and the British withdrew to Nova Scotia.

Who hid by the starting pen in 1966 and became the first woman to run the entire Boston Marathon?

Bobbi Gibb wore her brother's Bermuda shorts and a blue hooded sweatshirt for the run; a statue called The Girl Who Ran honours her in Hopkinton.

Which Massachusetts woman, the state's official heroine, disguised herself as a man to serve in the Continental Army?

Deborah Sampson took a leg wound that never fully healed; years later Paul Revere wrote to officials on her behalf, asking that she be awarded a pension.

Which New England pastime, played with thin pins and a small ball without finger holes, began in Worcester in the 1880s?

Candlepin bowling is thought to be the work of Justin White, who owned a billiards and bowling hall in the city; its pins are tall and narrow, like candles.

Which Wampanoag sachem, called King Philip by the English, led a 1675 war against New England's colonists?

Metacom united Wampanoags, Pocomtucs, Nipmucs and Narragansetts against the colonies, and was killed near Mount Hope in August 1676.

Which state does Massachusetts meet at the southern edge of Fall River, where Tiverton lies just across the line?

Rhode Island once had a Fall River of its own: the two neighbouring towns became one Massachusetts city when the Supreme Court moved the boundary in 1861.

Which river, the longest in New England, flows south through Massachusetts past Springfield towards Long Island Sound?

The Connecticut runs about 406 miles through four states, and the land along it includes some of the most productive farmland in the northeastern United States.

Which river divides downtown Boston from Cambridge and hosts the world's largest long-distance rowing regatta?

The Charles wanders 80 miles through 23 cities and towns, yet it rises in Hopkinton only 26 miles from where it meets the sea.

Which river flows out of New Hampshire, then bends northeast past Lawrence and Haverhill to the sea at Newburyport?

The Merrimack even shapes the state line: from Lowell onward, the border with New Hampshire was drawn roughly three miles north of the river.

Which headland northeast of Boston includes the fishing city of Gloucester and the towns of Rockport and Essex?

Cape Ann was named by an English prince in honour of his mother, Anne of Denmark; Captain John Smith had first called the area Cape Tragabigzanda.

Which bay is home to the port of New Bedford, the city nicknamed the Whaling City?

Buzzards Bay has a mistake for a name: the ospreys native to its shores were misidentified as buzzards.

Which Massachusetts town sits on a lake whose 45-letter name is often cited as America's longest place name?

Webster also lends the lake its everyday name, Webster Lake; even the short form of the long name, Chaubunagungamaug, runs to 17 letters.

Which chain stretching southwest from Cape Cod to Cuttyhunk is almost entirely owned by the Forbes family?

The Elizabeth Islands number more than 20; only Cuttyhunk, where most of the year-round residents live, and Penikese are outside the family's hands.

Which town occupies the southeast corner of Cape Cod, the spot known as the peninsula's elbow?

Chatham's place at the elbow, where the Cape turns north, helped make it a centre for shipping, fishing and whaling.

Which regional name covers the Massachusetts river country around Springfield, Northampton and Amherst?

Pioneer Valley is a colloquial and promotional name; the region is also called the Pocumtuck Valley, after the indigenous people who lived there.

Which rock band, sometimes called the Bad Boys from Boston, formed in the Massachusetts capital in 1970?

Aerosmith spent the 1970s touring hard and charted a dozen Hot 100 singles in the decade, among them Dream On and Walk This Way.

Which scholar and activist was born in the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in February 1868?

W. E. B. Du Bois grew up in what was a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and in 1909 became one of the founders of the NAACP.