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1630: Boston Founded
Under the leadership of John Winthrop,
English Puritans moved from overcrowded Charlestown and colonized the
Shawmut Peninsula. Permission was granted from its sole English
inhabitant, Anglican cleric William Blaxton. Their city on the hill was
named Boston in honor of the native English town of their leaders. -
1636: Harvard Created
Boston’s
Puritan leaders established a college at Newtown (later Cambridge) to
educate future generations of clergy. When young Charlestown minister
John Harvard died two years later and left his books and half his money
to the college, it was renamed Harvard.
Gates, Harvard University
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1775: American Revolution
Friction
between colonists and the British crown had been building for more than
a decade when British troops marched on Lexington to confiscate rebel
weapons. Forewarned by Paul Revere,
local militia, known as the Minute Men, skirmished with British
regulars on Lexington Green. During the second confrontation at Concord,
the shot heard round the world marked the beginning of the Revolution,
which ended in American independence with the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
Battle of Concord Bridge
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1845: Irish Arrived
Irish
fleeing the potato famine arrived in Boston in tens of thousands, many
eventually settling in the south of the city. By 1900, the Irish were
the dominant ethnic group in Boston. They flexed their political muscle
accordingly, culminating in the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960.
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