1635: Puritans found America's first public school, Boston Latin School

1636: Puritans found America's first college, Harvard College

1638: First American printing press set up in Cambridge by Stephen Daye.

1639: First post office in America established, in Richard Fairbanks' tavern in Boston.

1692: Witchcraft trials begin in Salem.

1704: First regularly issued American newspaper published, The Boston News-Letter.

1716: America's first lighthouse, "The Boston Light," built in Boston Harbor.

1770: British troops kill five colonists in “Boston Massacre” at Customs House

1773: Colonists disguised as Indians host “Boston Tea Party.”

1775: Battle of Lexington and Concord fought; currently celebrated as “Patriots’ Day.”

1775: Battle of Bunker Hill fought

1776: British troops leave Boston; currently celebrated as “Evacuation Day.”

1780: State constitution adopted; John Hancock becomes first Governor

1785: Daniel Shay leads rebellion of farmers protesting excessive taxes; prompts call or stronger national government

1795: “New” Boston State House completed.

1796: John Adams elected second President of United States.

1820: Maine separated from Massachusetts as part of Missouri Compromise.

1822: Boston chartered as a city.

1820s: First large-scale wave of Irish and other European immigrants arrives in Boston

1824: John Quincy Adams elected sixth President of United States.

1826: The first American railroad built in Quincy.

1831: William Lloyd Garrison founds anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, establishing Boston as the center of the abolitionist movement

1848: Boston Female Medical School opens, America’s first college for the medical education of women

1850: The first National Women's Rights Convention convenes in Worcester.

1857: Filling of the Back Bay begins

1857: The Atlantic Monthly founded, honoring a Boston literary tradition that includes authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., James Russell Lowell, Edward Everett, William Prescott, Francis Parkman, William Ellery Channing, Theodore Parker and Henry James

1872: The Great Boston Fire destroys 776 buildings and 65 acres

1876: First telephone demonstrated by Alexander Graham Bell.

1879: Mary Baker Eddy founds Church of Christ, Scientist

1882: Filling of Back Bay complete

1891: First basketball game played in Springfield.

1897: Boston’s Tremont Street Subway becomes America’s first underground railway

1919: Governor Calvin Coolidge gains national fame ending Boston Policemen’s strike

1920: Calvin Coolidge elected vice-president; becomes 30th president of United States in 1923.

1927: Convicted anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti sent to electric chair, sparking world-wide riots

1928: M.I.T. develops first computer, a non-electronic "differential analyzer."

1934: Sumner Tunnel provides first direct road connection under Boston Harbor between the North End and East Boston

1942: Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, deadliest nightclub fire in US history, kills 492

1950s: Urban renewal begins; Old West End and Scollay Square neighborhoods demolished to make way for Government Center, Charles River Park and additions to Massachusetts General Hospital

1957: Massachusetts Turnpike complete

1960: John F. Kennedy elected 35th president of United States.

1961: First nuclear-powered surface vessel, USS Long Beach, launched at Quincy.

1961: Callahan Tunnel opened alongside Sumner Tunnel

1965: Massachusetts Turnpike Extension complete

1966: Edward W. Brooke becomes first African-American elected to US Senate.

1974: Violence erupts after federal district court judge W. Arthur Garrity orders busing to integrate Boston’s public schools.

1991: Construction begins on new Central Artery “Big Dig” Project

1995: Ted Williams Tunnel linking I-93 to Logan Airport opens to commercial traffic

2002: New England Patriots win first Super Bowl

2003: Ted Williams Tunnel linking I-93 to Logan Airport opens to all traffic

2004: Boston hosts Democratic National Convention

2004: Boston Red Sox end “Curse of The Bambino” winning World Series

2005: Thomas M. Menino elected to an historic fourth term as Mayor of the City of Boston

2006: Deval Patrick elected the Commonwealth’s first African-American Governor

2007: “Big Dig” Central Artery Project complete.