One Issue and Done: America's First Newspaper Lasted Four Days
On September 25, 1690, Benjamin Harris printed America's first multi-page newspaper in Boston — and colonial authorities shut it down four days later.
Tagged: colonial america
"As Innocent as the Child Unborn": Salem's First Hanging
On June 10, 1692, Bridget Bishop became the first person hanged in the Salem witch trials, the opening act of a panic that still warns against justice without evidence.
The German Mayflower
On October 6, 1683, the ship Concord landed 13 German families at Philadelphia — the 'German Mayflower' voyage that founded Germantown and opened two centuries of German immigration to America.
Rhode Island's 1652 Law That Tried to End Slavery
On May 18, 1652, Rhode Island passed the first anti-slavery statute in English North America, capping servitude at ten years — a landmark law that was never enforced.