Massachusetts Trivia & Tidbits

Looking for Massachusetts trivia? Try our list Massachusetts little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The Boston Philosophical Society convened its first meeting in 1683. The intention of its founders was to model their meetings after those of London's Royal Philosophical Society, where scientific papers were read at each meeting. Within three years, however, interest in the society waned.

first appeared: 10/18/2009

The first iron lung artificial respirator was used in 1928 to help a young polio victim at Children's Hospital in Boston. The patient's recovery from respiratory failure was almost immediate.

first appeared: 10/4/2009

The Mapparium, located within the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, is a giant glass ball surrounded by lights with a footbridge through the middle. The glass is stained on the inside to depict a political map of the Earth-as it was in 1935-turned inside out.

first appeared: 9/20/2009

Igloo, the fox terrier that accompanied Adm. Richard E. Byrd on his first Antarctic expedition in 1928, is buried in the Pine Ridge Pet Cemetery in Dedham (pop. 23,464). Igloo's monument was made in the shape of an iceberg.

first appeared: 9/6/2009

Born in 1932 at Elmhill Farm in Brookfield (pop. 3,051), Elsie the Cow became an advertising symbol for the Borden Co.'s dairy products. Her image was in magazines and newspapers and on billboards and prompted a flood of fan mail. In 1939, she made a live appearance at the New York World's Fair.

first appeared: 8/23/2009

The grasshopper weather vane atop Faneuil Hall in Boston was made in 1742 of gilded copper with glass eyes. Because the building was to be the city's new central marketplace, the builder selected the grasshopper, which was a copy of the vane on London's Royal Exchange.

first appeared: 8/9/2009

A cast-copper weathervane depicting a man driving an antique touring car drew little attention until its owner, the Lexington (pop. 30,355) Historical Society, opted to sell the piece. Hoping for $30,000, the society was stunned when the weathervane fetched $941,000 in 2007.

first appeared: 7/26/2009

—Rainsford Island in Boston Harbor was the site of a quarantine hospital, which opened in 1737, and a hospital for smallpox victims, built in 1832. Patients who didn't recover from their illnesses frequently were buried in nearby unmarked graves.

first appeared: 7/12/2009

—"Blue Hills of Massachusetts," composed by Katherine E. Mullen, of Barre (pop. 5,113), was designated the official state poem in 1981.

first appeared: 6/28/2009

—Although women had been training as doctors for a few decades, they were repeatedly denied membership in the Massachusetts Medical Society until 1884, when the society finally voted to allow women into its ranks.

first appeared: 6/14/2009

—Seymour Papert, co-founder with Marvin Minsky of the artificial intelligence lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, studied ways to use mathematics to better understand how children learn and think. Papert invented the Logo computer language for children.

first appeared: 5/31/2009

—Stoneham (pop. 22,219) resident Jonathan Delman, a mental health activist who has bipolar disorder, founded Consumer Quality Initiatives, which fosters research on mental health issues. He has worked with the state to help improve mental health services.

first appeared: 5/17/2009

—The American Indian gallery at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard (pop. 5,981) began with the discovery of Indian artifacts on the property and opened in the late 1920s. Among the artworks on the grounds is the statue Pumanangwet or "He Who Shoots the Stars," by Philip Sears.

first appeared: 5/3/2009

–Henry Melson Stommel (1920–1992), a research associate at the Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole (pop. 925) and professor of oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, was particularly interested in the Gulf Stream. He theorized that the warm ocean current's northward flow is balanced by a current of cold water beneath it that moves southward–movement known as the conveyor belt.

first appeared: 4/19/2009

—The first U.S. patent for a spectrophotometer, which could detect 2 million shades of color and make a permanent record of them, was issued in 1935 to Arthur Cobb Hardy of Wellesley (pop. 26,613). The patent was assigned to the General Electric Co., which shortly thereafter manufactured its first machine.

first appeared: 4/5/2009

—The bronze statue of a newsboy, erected in 1895 in Great Barrington (pop. 7,527), depicts one of the earliest icons of the newspaper. Shortly after it was restored in 1995, the statue survived a tornado that toppled trees all around it.

first appeared: 3/22/2009

—Film director, writer, producer and actor Cecil B. DeMille was born in Ashfield (pop. 1,800) in 1881. DeMille debuted as an actor in 1900, and in 1913 he joined forces with Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn to form what ultimately would become Paramount Pictures.

first appeared: 3/8/2009

—The nation’s first female astronomer, Maria Mitchell discovered a comet while gazing through her telescope in her observatory in Nantucket (pop. 9,520) in 1847. For the discovery, she earned a gold medal presented by the king of Denmark and became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

first appeared: 2/22/2009

—Established in 1907, the Pine Ridge Pet Cemetery in Dedham (pop. 23,464) is one of the nation’s oldest pet cemeteries operated by an animal welfare agency. The nonprofit Animal Rescue League of Boston has saved domesticated animals and wildlife since 1899.

first appeared: 2/8/2009

—Harold Stephen Black, born in Leominster (pop. 41,303) in 1898, was a research engineer who invented systems that eliminated feedback distortion from telephone calls. His negative feedback amplifier produced clearer telephone signals, especially over long distances.

first appeared: 1/11/2009

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