American Revolution

  • First shot of the American Revolution was fired in Lexington (1775)
  • Phyllis Wheatley was the first freed African American woman published poet (1773)
  • First draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776)
  • The General Henry Knox Trail (1775-1776)

Public Figures, Actors, Actresses

  • Massachusetts is the birthplace of 4 U.S. Presidents, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush
  • Actor Steve Carell was born in Concord and raised in Acton
  • Former pro-wrestler-turned-actor John Cena was born in West Newbury
  • Comedian Conan O’Brien is from Brookline
  • Singer / Songwriter Meghan Trainor was born and raised on the island of Nantucket
  • Actor Uma Thurman was born in Boston and raised in Amherst
  • Actor Chis Evans was born in Boston, raised in Sudbury
  • Actor Mindy Kaling was born and raised in Cambridge
  • Actor, Comedian and TV writer Ayo Edebiri, born in Boston
  • Actor Matt Damon was born in Cambridge
  • Actor Ben Affleck grew up in Falmouth and Cambridge

Famous Films Filmed in Massachusetts

  • Jaws – 50th Anniversary in 2025
  • American Fiction
  • The Holdovers
  • Little Women
  • The Perfect Storm
  • Manchester by the Sea
  • Good Will Hunting

Statewide – Famous Firsts

  • First state to legalize same-sex marriage (2004)
  • Newburyport is the birthplace of the U.S. Coast Guard
  • The first public beach in the United States is in Revere
  • Provincetown is America’s oldest continuous art colony
  • Boston Public Garden – first public botanical garden in the United States (1837)
  • Boston Common – first public park in America (1634)
  • Massachusetts had the first free public school (1639)
  • The first American lighthouse is Boston Light on Little Brewster Island (1716).

Culinary

  • Chocolate Chip Cookies were invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield at the Toll House Inn in Whitman in the 1930s
  • The fried clam was invented at Woodman’s of Essex in 1916
  • The first chocolate factory in the U.S., Baker Chocolate, Dorchester (1765)
  • Southeastern Massachusetts is the oldest cranberry growing region in the U.S

First in Sports

  • Fenway Park is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball (MLB) – 1912
  • Willie O’Ree is the first Black hockey player to play in a National Hockey League (NHL) game debuting with the Boston Bruins in 1958
  • Bill Russell, who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969, served as the first Black NBA coach
  • The first basketball game was played in Springfield, in 1891
  • Volleyball was founded in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1947.

Famous Authors

  • Emily Dickinson (Amherst)
  • Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Doris Kearn Goodwin (Concord)
  • Herman Melville (New Bedford and Pittsfield)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne (Salem)
  • David McCullough (Boston, Hingham)

Famous Women

  • Ameila Earheart lived in Medford
  • Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born in North Oxford.

Famous Musicians/Music Groups from Massachusetts

  • Aerosmith, formed in Boston in 1970
  • New Kids on the Block, formed in Dorchester in 1984
  • The Cars, formed in Boston in 1976
  • Pixies, formed in Boston in 1986
  • Lake Street Dive, formed at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2004
  • Leonard Bernstein born in Lawrence in 1918

Famous Inventions

  • First telephone call took place in Boston by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant, Thomas Watson, in the next room (1876)
  • First sewing machine was created in Boston by Elias Howe (1845)
  • First gasoline powered automobile created by Charles and Frank Duryea in Springfield (1892)
  • First computer was developed by Dr. Vannevar Bush at MIT in Cambridge (1928)

Quirky Facts

  • Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Webster, is the lake with the longest name in the US
  • Massachusetts has over 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers) of coastline