Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
find that their third title was virtually a
footnote. Three months earlier, in Octo-
ber 2004, the Red Sox won the World
Series for the first time since 1918. Many
Sox fans believe that victory ended a
curse, and they point to the Sox' 2007
Series crown as evidence. Meanwhile,
many Pats fans are wondering whether
their previously undefeated team's loss in
the 2008 Super Bowl signals another run
of mystical bad luck.
Pro sports are only part of the story,
though: In a region with an enormous
student population, college athletics are a
big deal, too. You may have heard that
Boston is a college town, but you may not
realize just how true that is until you're
out and about, tripping over chattering
post-adolescents nearly everywhere—
even downtown (where Suffolk Univer-
sity and Emerson College are expanding
their footprints). They infuse their youth-
ful energy into every facet of life in the
Boston area.
To get a sense of what present-day
Boston is (and is not) like, hit the streets.
The puritanical Bostonian is virtually
extinct, but you can still uncover traces of
the groups, institutions, and events that
shaped Boston's history and created the
complex city you see today.
2 Looking Back at Boston
Permanently settled in 1630 by represen-
tatives of the Massachusetts Bay Com-
pany, Boston was named for the
hometown of some of the Puritans who
left England to seek religious freedom in
the New World. They met with little of
the usual strife with the natives, members
of the small, Algonquian-speaking Mass-
achuset tribe that roamed the area. The
natives might have used the peninsula
they called Shawmut (possibly derived
from “Mushau-womuk,” or “unclaimed
land”) as a burial place. They grew corn
on some harbor islands but made their
permanent homes farther inland.
In 1632, the little peninsula became
the capital of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, and the population soon
increased rapidly because of the great
Puritan migration. Thanks to its excellent
location on a deep, sheltered harbor,
Boston quickly became a center of ship-
building, fishing, and trading.
The only thing more important than
commerce was religion, and the Puritans
exerted such a strong influence that their
We're Number 1!
Boston's list of firsts is a long one. Here are some highlights:
• America's first public school (Boston Latin School, 1635)
• America's first printing press (in Cambridge, 1638)
• America's first post office (1639)
• America's first regularly published newspaper, the
Boston News Letter
(1704)
• America's first chocolate factory (1765)
• First operation under general anesthesia (removal of a jaw tumor, at Massa-
chusetts General Hospital, 1846)
• America's first subway (1897)
• First successful human-to-human organ transplant (of a kidney, at Peter Bent
Brigham Hospital, 1954)
• First successful reattachment of a human limb (a 12-year-old boy's right arm,
at Mass. General, 1962)
