Massachusetts Trivia & Tidbits - Page 7

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

The Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History, founded in 1960 in Weston (pop. 11,469), brought together the collections of Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, and Philadelphia’s National Philatelic Museum.

first appeared: 3/27/2005

Fort Warren, located on Georges Island in Boston Harbor, housed Confederate prisoners, including Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander H. Stephens from May until October 1865.

first appeared: 3/13/2005

Golfer Pat Bradley of Westford (pop. 20,754) was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame in 1991.

first appeared: 2/27/2005

Forrest Bird, born in Stoughton (pop. 27,149) in 1921, invented the first reliable, low-cost mass-produced medical respirator and founded Bird Products Corp. in 1954 to develop and market the device. In 1970, he introduced the "babybird" respirator for use on infants that decreased infant mortality due to respirator problems from 70 percent to less than 10 percent.

first appeared: 2/13/2005

Shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles from 1965 to 1981, Mark Belanger (1944-1998) of Pittsfield (pop. 45,793) won eight Gold Glove awards during his baseball career.

first appeared: 1/30/2005

Harold Edgerton (1903-1990), a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, pioneered strobe photography in 1931. His ability to capture motion in photos—from hummingbirds hovering to bullets bursting through balloons—won him international acclaim.

first appeared: 1/16/2005

Inventor Francis Davis of Waltham (pop. 59,226) installed the first effective power steering system in a 1921 Pierce-Arrow car in 1925. The first successful applications appeared in World War II-era military vehicles, but it was 1951 before standard production models carried the innovation.

first appeared: 1/2/2005

Founded in 1704, The Boston News-Letter was the first regularly published newspaper in the British colonies. Under other names, it continued in print until 1776.

first appeared: 12/19/2004

In 1897, John J. McDermott of New York City’s Pastime Athletic Club defeated 14 other runners to win the first Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 55 minutes.

first appeared: 12/5/2004

The Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury (2,467) on Martha's Vineyard is a nonprofit horticultural research center. Many of the species originally planted in 1958 were thought to be unsuited to the island's climate.

first appeared: 11/21/2004

Opened in 1803, the 27-mile-long Middlesex Canal connected Boston Harbor to the Merrimack River at Lowell. It was an instant commercial success but by the early 1850s was made obsolete by the expansion and greater capacity of the Boston & Lowell Railroad.

first appeared: 11/7/2004

In 1883, a fire destroyed more than 70 buildings in Vineyard Haven (pop. 2,048) on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Among the casualties was the Baptist Church, whose bell was said to ring out its own requiem when the blaze toppled its tower.

first appeared: 10/24/2004

In 1852, the Bay State passed the nation’s first law mandating that children between the ages of 8 and 14 attend school for at least three months of the year. Six weeks had to be consecutive.

first appeared: 10/10/2004

The National Negro Business League, founded in Boston in 1900, was renamed and reincorporated as the National Business League in 1966.

first appeared: 10/3/2004

Gay Head Cliffs, located at the western tip of Martha’s Vineyard island, was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1965.

first appeared: 9/19/2004

The Royal Rooters cheered the Boston Pilgrims—now the Red Sox—to victory in the 1903 World Series. The loyal Rooters followed their team to Pittsburgh and even hired an orchestra to accompany them.

first appeared: 9/12/2004

The first American power loom, which turned cotton yarn into cloth, was developed in 1813 by a group of Boston merchants headed by Francis Cabot Lowell.

first appeared: 9/5/2004

The Ig Nobel Prizes, a parody of the Nobel Prizes, are presented annually at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre in Cambridge for achievements that couldn’t—or shouldn’t—be reproduced.

first appeared: 8/29/2004

Waltham Watch Co., which pioneered the mass-production of watches with interchangeable parts, opened its first factory in 1854 in Waltham.

first appeared: 8/22/2004

Once known as “Comb City” for its prominent comb-making industry, Leominster (pop. 41,303) later was dubbed “Plastic City” when plastic was substituted for the increasingly scarce animal horn from which the original combs were made.

first appeared: 8/15/2004

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