Boston

U.S.A.

U.S.A. facts & history in brief        U.S.A. Map

Boston is just over 300 km (200 miles) northeast of New York City on a small peninsula in Massachusetts Bay.
It was founded in 1624 (Soon after, the Pilgrims arrived in nearby Plymouth), by English settlers and was called Trimountain (from its three hills) at the beginning.
Later it was renamed after the English town.
Right from the beginning, Massachusetts Bay and Boston was the centre of Puritan culture and life in America.
By the early 1700s it was well on its way to being one of the most important city on the Atlantic coast after New York.
King George III and Parliament chose Boston first, to be levied with taxation without representation.
Resistance surfaced, centred in Boston.
The Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party were the early signals of the following revolutionary movements, and the Battle of Bunker Hill was the turning point to declare independence from the British Empire.
In the late 1700s Boston entered a commercial and industrial boom which lasted until the mid 1800s in shipbuilding, maritime trade and manufacturing textiles and shoes.
Chartered as a city in 1822, Boston's Beacon Hill was soon endowed with many fine mansions built by the city's wealthy families.
These prominent and families also heavily patronised arts and culture.
In the late 1800s Boston's prominence was challenged by the growth of other port cities and the westward expansion of the national borders.
New arrivals from Ireland Italy, the Balkans and Portugal greatly changed Boston's traditional ethnic and cultural structure.
In the 20th century, Boston has remained an important commercial centre, port, an important centre for medical education, treatment and research, and university centre.
Boston's best known and most important sights are within 8 sq km, (5 square miles), including the historic city centre, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Government Centre, Financial District, Boston Common Beacon Hill, Chinatown, Backbay, South End, North End, Fenway and Cambridge (home of Harvard and MIT) is just across the Charles River.
Chinese New Year and the St. Patrick's Day are some of the major celebrations and the Boston Marathon.
Some of Boston's main attractions are;
North End with its narrow, winding streets, smell of coffee many of the city's Italian population is one of the oldest neighbourhood.
Copp's Hill Burying Ground, the tiny clapboard Paul Revere House, the oldest house in Boston and the Old North Church are here.
Faneuil Hall and the Quincy Market, built in the 1740s, always been a market with an upstairs meeting hall and it was made into a tourist attraction in the 1970s.
Street performers regularly perform outside.
Beacon Hill.
Oliver Wendell Holmes called Boston and especially Beacon Hill the 'hub of the universe,' with the gilt dome of the Massachusetts State House and the surrounding brick mansions of Boston's most affluent.
The Old State House, from its balcony the Declaration of Independence was read, and the Old South Meeting House, where the 1774 Boston Tea Party begin.
Cambridge, where the famous Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are located just across the Charles River from Boston, Charlestown, is Boston's living museum of its shipbuilding past, with the oldest US Navy commissioned ship the USS Constitution tied up on its shores.
Nearby are the Bunker Hill Monument and Monument Square, where battles of the Revolutionary War were fought.
Lexington is about 29km (18 miles) from downtown Boston, where the first battle of the Revolutionary War took place on the Lexington Green (now called Battle Green), and many historic houses and taverns.
Then there are Salem, Marblehead, and Cape Cod with their own histories and attractions.

Boston has a population of about 1 million.

Hui Chin and I arrived in Boston in the middle of the night and after a lot of walking and I mean a lot of walking, dragging our suitcases along couldn't find any affordable hotels with vacancies.
Believe me, we tried quiet a few, in Downtown and nearby.
So disappointed, we walked back to to bus station to 'bunker down' for the rest of the night, with many others.
Early morning with our bags tucked away in the lockers at the Bus Station, we went to explore Boston and its neighbourhood on foot and by taxi, because we couldn't find any 'city sightseeing tours in time.
In the end I think we've managed to see it all.
Including the Downtown, the historic city centre, Faneuil Hall Marketplace Government Center, Financial District, Boston Common, Beacon Hill, Chinatown, Backbay, South End, North End, Fenway and Cambridge and the famous Harvard University, Charlestown, the USS Constitution, Paul Revere House, the Old North Church, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, the Massachusetts State House, the Old South Meeting House, Lexington, Battle Green and many others of Boston's attractions.

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