History of New England
Birthplace of the Revolution. Backbone of the Union. New England has long been the most prosperous and well-established region of the United States.
Military History Online -- "King Philip's War"
Running from 1675-1676, King Philip's War ended with the near-annihilation of the New England Indians and killed almost 2% of the colonist population.
Recommended Books
- Tom Wessels, Brian D. Cohen, and Ann H. Zwinger - Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England
- James Truslow Adams - The Founding of New England
- Sumner Chilton Powell - Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town
- William Moran - The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove
- Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Timeline of New England
- c.8000 B.C. - First American Indians arrive in what is now the New England region, migrating from the west. They largely consist of Algonquin speakers.
- c.1550 - European fur traders begin to filter into the region.
- 1615 - Epidemic of leptospirosis reduces the number of Wampanoag by up to ninety percent.
- 1620 - Plymouth Colony founded by the Mayflower pilgrims, who missed their target of Virginia by a wide margin.
- 1636 - Harvard College is founded in Boston, and is still the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.
- 1675-1678 - Metacomet unsuccessfully leads the Wampanoag against the English in King Philip's War.
- 1686 - The short-lived Dominion of New England is established by King James II with Sir Edmund Andros as governor.
- 1773 - The Boston Tea Party occurs, and the British place Massachusetts under military rule.
- 1775 - First shots of the Revolutionary War are fired at Lexington and Concord, forcing a British withdrawal.
- 1786-1787 - Shays' Rebellion leads to breakdown of order in Massachusetts, and gives ammunition to supporters of a new Constitution.
- 1787 - First American cotton mill is founded in Beverly, Massachusetts. Textile mills become a key New England industry.
- 1830-1840 - Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau become prominent intellectual voices.
- 1845 - The Atlantic whaling industry reaches its heights, as immortalized in Moby Dick.
- 1850-1900 - Irish and Italian immigrants transform the demographics of the region, particularly in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1919 - The Boston Red Sox trade Babe Ruth to the Yankees for cash considerations.
- 2004 - Facebook is launched, initially limited to active students of Harvard University.
American History Topics
ERAS: Pre-Contact - Colonial - Revolutionary - Antebellum - Gilded Age - Depression/World War II - Modern
PEOPLE: American Indian - Anglo/Scottish - Black - Hispanic - Women - Asian - LGBT - Irish - Jewish - Children
