Search Results
H.L. Mencken Arrested in Boston
H.L. Mencken Arrested in Boston
On this day in 1926, reporter and literary critic H.L. Mencken was arrested on Boston Common for selling a magazine that had been banned by the New England Watch and Ward Society, the city's self-appointed...
Harvard Students Occupy University Hall
Harvard Students Occupy University Hall
On this day in 1969, Harvard students took over University Hall, one of the college's oldest buildings. Opposed to the escalating war in Vietnam, the protesters demanded Harvard end its Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or...
Massachusetts Passes First Education Law
Massachusetts Passes First Education Law
On this day in 1642, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the first law in the New World requiring that children be taught to read and write. The English Puritans who founded Massachusetts believed that the well-being...
The Birth of a Nation Sparks Protest
The Birth of a Nation Sparks Protest
On this day in 1915 Boston's African American community protested the showing of the racist film The Birth of a Nation. When 800 black women gathered at a Baptist church, one speaker suggested that "if...
Jury Finds Mary Parsons Not Guilty of Witchcraft
Jury Finds Mary Parsons Not Guilty of Witchcraft
On this day in 1675, a Boston jury reached a verdict in the case of Mary Bliss Parsons of Northampton: they found her not guilty of witchcraft. In seventeenth-century New England, virtually everyone believed in...
Complaint Filed on Toxic Pollution in Woburn
Complaint Filed on Toxic Pollution in Woburn
On this day in 1984, lawyer Jan Schlichtmann filed the first motion in the case made famous by the book and film "A Civil Action." For over a decade, children in Woburn had been falling...
Supreme Court Strikes Down "Separate but Equal"
Supreme Court Strikes Down "Separate but Equal"
On this day in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the doctrine of separate but equal. "Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race . . . deprives the children of...
Newburyport Fire Leads to Execution for Arson
Newburyport Fire Leads to Execution for Arson
On this day in 1820, a barn filled with hay burned to the ground in Newburyport. Just three days later, cries of "fire" alarmed the town again. Terrified residents were convinced they had an arsonist...
Indians in Mashpee Demand Self-Government
Indians in Mashpee Demand Self-Government
On this day in 1833, the Mashpee of Cape Cod signed what amounted to an Indian Declaration of Independence. They reminded officials in Boston that "all men are born free and Equal, as says the...
Sumner Attacked in U.S. Senate
Sumner Attacked in U.S. Senate
On this day in 1856, Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina, viciously attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate. Three days earlier, in a passionate anti-slavery speech, Sumner...