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1630 The city of Boston
, Massachusetts is founded.
1636 The first American ancestor of John Adams
emigrates to Massachusetts.
1651 Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding poor people from adopting excessive styles of dress.
1676 The Nantucket Island Prison founded on Nantucket Island in the English colony of Massachusetts
1690 The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America
.
1717 April 26 — The ''Whydah Gally'', flagship of "Black Sam" Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The ''Whydah'' sinks with a reputed four and a half tons of treasure on board, and all but two of her crew are lost, including Bellamy.
1755 An earthquake occurs in the vicinity of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, causing extensive damage.
1775 American Revolutionary War
: British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion
1776 The American War of Independence
: The Americans capture "Dorchester Heights" dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts.
1788 Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution
and becomes the 6th U.S. state
.
1796 In a chapter of the TV animated series The Simpsons
Jedediah Springfield with a group of colonists from Massachusetts founded the town of Springfield.
1812 Massachusetts governor
Elbridge Gerry
invents gerrymandering.
1848 Boston Public Library is founded by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.
1854 The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury, Massachusetts by Aaron Lufkin Dennison
relocates to Waltham to become the Waltham Watch Company, pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
1868 Asa Mercer and number of new "Mercer Girls
" sail from Massachusetts for West Coast - they arrive in Seattle in May 23
1869 Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1909 Construction begins on the Cape Cod Canal, which would separate Cape Cod
from mainland Massachusetts, United States
.
1922 State of Massachusetts opens all public offices to women
1938 The towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott in Massachusetts are disincorporated to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir.
1960 February 11 — The airship
ZPG-3W is destroyed in a storm in Massachusetts.
1964 Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Governor Endicott Peabody of Massachusetts, is released on $450 bond after spending two days in jail in St. Augustine, Florida, because of her participation in an anti-segregation demonstration there.
1966 Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American
elected to the United States Senate
since Reconstruction
.
1969 Ted Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne
, a former campaign aide to his brother who was in the car with him, dies in the incident.
1970 Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States
votes six to three not to hear a case by the state of Massachusetts, about the constitutionality of a state law granting Massachusetts residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.
1971 Massachusetts passes its Chapter 766 laws enacting Special Education.
1988 Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis
wins the Wisconsin
Democratic presidential primary.
2003 The Massachusetts Supreme Court, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, rules anti-same-sex marriage
laws unconstitutional in Massachusetts.
2004 Massachusetts legalizes same-sex marriage in compliance with a ruling from the state's Supreme Judicial Court (''Goodridge v. Department of Public Health'').
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Timeline
