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Knowles Riot
The Knowles Riot, also known as the Impressment Riot of 1747, was a three-day riot in Boston that began on 17 November 1747, in response to the impressment of 46 Bostonians by Admiral Charles Knowles into the navy. Hundreds of mostly working-class rioters rampaged through Boston, paralyzed the provincial government, and captured several naval officers and the sheriff's deputy. After Knowles threatened to bombard the town, the British governor of Boston, William Shirley, persuaded him to release the Bostonians in exchange for the hostages. The Knowles Riot was the largest impressment riot in North America, and the most serious uprising by the American colonists in Colonial America prior to the Stamp Act protests of 1765. A few days after the incident, an anonymous writer—probably Samuel Adams—published a pamphlet praising the rioters for defending their natural rights. This was the first time the ideas of John Locke were used to justify resistance to the authority of the Crow ...
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Siege Of Louisbourg (1745)
The siege of Louisbourg took place in 1745 when a New England colonial force aided by a British fleet captured Louisbourg, the capital of the French province of Île-Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island) during the War of the Austrian Succession, known as King George's War in the British colonies. The northern British colonies regarded Louisbourg as a menace, calling it the "American Dunkirk" due to its use as a base for privateers. There was regular, intermittent warfare between the French and the Wabanaki Confederacy on one side and the northern New England colonies on the other (''See the Northeast Coast Campaigns of 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724''). For the French, the Fortress of Louisbourg also protected the chief entrance to Canada, as well as the nearby French fisheries. The French government had spent 25 years in fortifying it, and the cost of its defenses was reckoned at thirty million livres. Although the fortress's construction and layout was acknowledged as having ...
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Washington Street (Boston)
Washington Street is a street originating in downtown Boston, Massachusetts that extends southwestward to the Massachusetts–Rhode Island state line. The majority of its length outside of the city was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early 19th century. It is the longest street in Boston and remains one of the longest streets in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The street's great age in the city of Boston has given rise to a phenomenon whereby intersecting streets have different names on either side of Washington Street. History Until 1803 and the commencement of large-scale infilling of Boston Harbor and Back Bay, the town lay at the end of a peninsula less than a hundred feet wide at its narrowest point. This was the waist of the strip of land known as Boston Neck. Originally a single street traversed the Neck, joining peninsular Boston to the mainland. This was termed Orange or South-End Street. The route served as the first leg of the Boston Post Road to Ne ...
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King Street (Boston, Massachusetts)
State Street in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest streets in the city. Located in the financial district, it is the site of some historic landmarks, such as Long Wharf, the Old State House and the Boston Custom House. History In 1630 the first Puritan settlers, led by John Winthrop, built their earliest houses along what is today "State Street." The Puritans also originally built the meeting house for the First Church in Boston on the street across from the marketplace, which was located where the Old State House stands today. By 1636 the thoroughfare was known as ''Market Street.'' From 1708 to 1784 it was renamed ''King Street''. In 1770 the Boston Massacre took place in front of the Customs House. During the Revolutionary War, it assumed its current, non-royalist name. In the 19th century State Street became known as Boston's primary location for banks and other financial institutions.Thomas F. AndersonHistoric Boston New England Magazine, June 1908 Transportatio ...
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Stocks
Stocks are feet restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law describing its use is cited by the orator Lysias: "“He shall have his foot confined in the stocks for five days, if the court shall make such addition to the sentence.” The “stocks” there mentioned, Theomnestus, are what we now call “confinement in the wood”" (''Lys''. 10.16) Form and applications The stocks, pillory, and pranger each consist of large wooden boards with hinges; however, the stocks are distinguished by their restraint of the feet. The stocks consist of placing boards around the ankles and wrists, whereas with the pillory, the boards are fixed to a pole and placed around the arms and neck, forcing the punished to stand. Victims may be insulted, kicked, tickled, spat on, or subjected to other inhumane acts. In the Bible, ...
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Thomas Hutchinson (governor)
Thomas Hutchinson (9 September 1711 – 3 June 1780) was a businessman, historian, and a prominent Loyalist politician of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the years before the American Revolution. He has been referred to as "the most important figure on the loyalist side in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts". He was a successful merchant and politician, and was active at high levels of the Massachusetts government for many years, serving as lieutenant governor and then governor from 1758 to 1774. He was a politically polarizing figure who came to be identified by John Adams and Samuel Adams as a proponent of hated British taxes, despite his initial opposition to Parliamentary tax laws directed at the colonies. He was blamed by Lord North (the British Prime Minister at the time) for being a significant contributor to the tensions that led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Hutchinson's Boston mansion was ransacked in 1765 during protests against the Stamp Ac ...
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Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Suffolk County is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 797,936, making it the fourth-most populous county in Massachusetts. The county comprises the cities of Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop. The traditional county seat is Boston, the state capital and the largest city in Massachusetts. The county government was abolished in 1999, and so Suffolk County today functions only as an administrative subdivision of state government and a set of communities grouped together for some statistical purposes. Suffolk County is located at the core of the Boston-Cambridge- Newton, MA- NH Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the greater Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA- RI- NH- CT Combined Statistical Area. History The county was created by the Massachusetts General Court on May 10, 1643, when it was ordered "that the whole plantation within this jurisdiction be divided into four shires". Suffolk initially cont ...
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Boston Harbor
Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States. History Since its discovery to Europeans by John Smith in 1614, Boston Harbor has been an important port in American history. Early on, it was recognized by Europeans as one of the finest natural harbors in the world due to its depth and natural defense from the Atlantic as a result of the many islands that dot the harbor. It was also favored due to its access to the Charles River, Neponset River and Mystic River which made travel from the harbor deeper into Massachusetts far easier. It was the site of the Boston Tea Party, as well as almost continuous building of wharves, piers, and new filled land into the harbor until the 19th century. By 1660, almost all imports came to the greater Boston area and the New England coast through the waters of Boston ...
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Nantasket Beach
Nantasket Beach is a beach in the town of Hull, Massachusetts. It is part of the Nantasket Beach Reservation, administered by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. The shore has fine, light gray sand and is one of the busiest beaches in Greater Boston. At low tide, there are acres of tide pools. Name The name "Nantasket" is derived from Wampanoag and means "at the strait" "low-tide place" or "where tides meet" as Hull is a peninsula. Nantasket was settled not long after Plymouth Colony and before Massachusetts Bay. Roger Conant was in the area after leaving the Plymouth Colony and before going to Cape Ann in 1625. Until Hull was incorporated in 1644, English settlers referred to the whole local region as "Nantasket Peninsula." History In 1825, Paul Warrick established "The Sportsman Hotel" on Nantasket Avenue. Later, more hotels were built and steamboats made three trips a day between Nantasket Beach and Boston in the 1840s. Ralph Waldo Emerson spent time at ...
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Squadron (naval)
A squadron, or naval squadron, is a significant group of warships which is nonetheless considered too small to be designated a fleet. A squadron is typically a part of a fleet. Between different navies there are no clear defining parameters to distinguish a squadron from a fleet (or from a flotilla), and the size and strength of a naval squadron varies greatly according to the country and time period. Groups of small warships, or small groups of major warships, might instead be designated flotillas by some navies according to their terminology. Since the size of a naval squadron varies greatly, the rank associated with command of a squadron also varies greatly. Before 1864 the entire fleet of the Royal Navy was divided into three squadrons, the red, the white, and the blue. Each Royal Navy squadron alone was more powerful than most national navies. Today, a squadron might number three to ten vessels, which might be major warships, transport ships, submarines, or small craft i ...
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Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions, also referred to as a letter of marque, during wartime. The commission empowered the holder to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war. This included attacking foreign vessels and taking them as prizes, and taking prize crews as prisoners for exchange. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, with the proceeds divided by percentage between the privateer's sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission (i.e. the sovereign). Privateering allowed sovereigns to raise revenue for war by mobilizing privately owned armed ships and sailors to supplement state power. For participants, privateerin ...
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Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarded as a two-star rank with a NATO code of OF-7. The term originated in the days of naval sailing squadrons and can trace its origins to the Royal Navy. Each naval squadron was assigned an admiral as its head, who commanded from the centre vessel and directed the squadron's activities. The admiral would in turn be assisted by a vice admiral, who commanded the lead ships that bore the brunt of a battle. In the rear of the squadron, a third admiral commanded the remaining ships and, as this section was considered to be in the least danger, the admiral in command of it was typically the most junior. This has continued into the modern age, with rear admiral the most junior admiralty of many navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank i ...
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