Massachusetts Trivia & Tidbits - Page 14

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

Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy, born March 26, 1931, and raised in a Boston tenement, made his professional acting debut at age 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951).

first appeared: 4/7/2002

For roughly 150 years, Nantucket was the busiest and most prosperous whaling port in the world. The homes of some of the ship owners and captains—Georgian, Federal, and Greek revival houses—together with older Quaker homes, make Nantucket Town an architectural treasure trove.

first appeared: 3/31/2002

The Craigie House in Cambridge, the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was among the first homes in America to have indoor plumbing, installed shortly after his marriage in 1843. The Longfellows installed central heating in 1850 and gaslight in 1853.

first appeared: 3/24/2002

Herman Melville bought a farm in Pittsfield in 1850, calling it Arrowhead after the many arrow points he found on the property. He wrote parts of Moby Dick (1851) there and two other books before selling the farm in 1863.

first appeared: 3/17/2002

Sandwich (pop. 20,136), one of the oldest towns on Cape Cod, was the home of Thornton W. Burgess (1874-1965), author of such children’s stories as Peter Cottontail and Old Mother West Wind.

first appeared: 3/10/2002

Cummington-born poet William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) published his first poem, The Embargo, at age 13 and composed Thanatopsis at 19. In addition to several published volumes of poetry, he produced translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

first appeared: 3/3/2002

Born in West Brookfield (pop. 3,804), Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree. An advocate for the abolition of slavery, she lectured for the American Anti-Slavery Society and spoke for women’s rights as well.

first appeared: 2/24/2002

Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) pioneered modern rocketry and space flight. Born in Worcester in 1912, he developed the detailed mathematical theory of rocket propulsion and, in 1915, proved that rocket engines could produce thrust in a vacuum and therefore make space flight possible.

first appeared: 2/17/2002

Born in Cambridge, poet e e (Edward Estlin) cummings (1894-1962) published more than 900 poems. He also painted and wrote plays and novels. Much of his work was done in Paris where he stayed on after volunteering as an ambulance driver during World War I.

first appeared: 2/10/2002

Mayflower Pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden left Plymouth Colony and built a house in neighboring Duxbury (pop. 14,248) in about 1653. The house has been in the Alden family ever since and is open for visitors.

first appeared: 2/3/2002

Inventor William D. Coolidge (1873-1975), born in Hudson (pop. 14,388), is best known for the X-ray tube, the model upon which all X-ray tubes for medical applications are patterned.

first appeared: 1/27/2002

Fourteen snake species are found in Massachusetts. Two of these—the timber rattler and copperhead—are venomous, and both are endangered.

first appeared: 1/20/2002

Through crossbreeding, cultivating seedlings, and grafting, horticulturist Luther Burbank (1849-1926) created breeds such as the July Elberta peach, Santa Rosa plum, and Flaming Gold nectarine. His greatest success was the Russet Burbank potato (1871), better known as the Idaho potato.

first appeared: 1/13/2002

Leominster-born Harold S. Black (1898-1983) revolutionized telecommunications by inventing systems that eliminated feedback distortion in telephone calls. His “wave translation system” earned him induction into the Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 1981.

first appeared: 1/6/2002

Boston cream pie was chosen as the official state dessert Dec. 12, 1996, after a civics class from Norton High School sponsored the bill. The pie beat out tollhouse cookies and Indian pudding.

first appeared: 12/30/2001

The state seal, adopted in 1780, includes a blue ribbon with a Latin inscription that, translated, reads, “By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.”

first appeared: 12/23/2001

Born in Swampscott (pop. 14,412), Lesley Stahl has been co-editor of CBS television’s 60 Minutes since 1991. Her work as a journalist, spanning more than 20 years, has earned her numerous Emmy Awards.

first appeared: 12/16/2001

The Bay State’s coast was first explored in 1602 by Englishman Bartholomew Gosnold (1572-1607). He named Cape Cod and several nearby islands.

first appeared: 12/9/2001

The 135-mile-long Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 90, opened in 1957 and spans Massachusetts from West Stockbridge on the New York border to I-93 in downtown Boston. It receives no federal tax revenue but operates on tolls, supplemented by revenue from leasing and development of land rights.

first appeared: 12/2/2001

The area around Lenox (pop. 5,077) in the Berkshires became home to a number of writers in the mid-19th century, including Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

first appeared: 11/25/2001

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