1630 The city of Boston, Massachusetts is founded.
1631 Roger Williams emigrates to Boston.
1635 The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
1648 Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts colony.
1704 The first regular newspaper in the United States, the ''News-Letter'', is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
1774 American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed pursuant to the Boston Port Act.
1775 American Revolutionary War: A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.
1776 The American War of Independence: The Americans capture Dorchester Heights dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts.
1776 American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
1837 The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish.
1839 In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.
1848 In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opens.
1851 The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
1857 The Atlantic founded in Boston.
1863 American Civil War: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first African American regiment, leaves Boston, Massachusetts, to fight for the Union.
1867 Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston. It was the first dental school in the U.S.
1867 At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.
1883 The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
1897 The Boston subway opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
1901 In Amherst, Massachusetts nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
1911 Ground is broken for Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
1912 Opening day for baseball stadiums Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
1928 An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston
1930 W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, ''The Fox Trappers''. The broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
1942 In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people.
1960 Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes after a bird strike on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board.
1979 The John F. Kennedy library is opened in Boston, Massachusetts.
1987 The Chase, Maryland rail wreck: An Amtrak train en route to Boston, Massachusetts from Washington, D.C., collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, killing 16 people.
1990 In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.