An 1875 print by John Steeple Davis depicting Ethan Allen demanding the fort's surrender
The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred during the American Revolutionary War on May 10, 1775, when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold overcame and looted a small British garrison. Cannons and other armaments from the fort were transported to Boston and used to fortify Dorchester Heights and break the stalemate at the Siege of Boston. After seizing Ticonderoga, a small detachment captured the nearby Fort Crown Point on May 11. On May 18, Arnold and 50 men boldly raided Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River in southern Quebec, seizing military supplies, cannons, and the largest military vessel on Lake Champlain. Although the scope of this military action was relatively minor, it had significant strategic importance. It impeded communication between northern and southern units of the British Army, and gave the nascent Continental Army a staging ground for the invasion of Quebec later in 1775. It also involved two larger-than-life personalities in Allen and Arnold, each of whom sought to gain as much credit and honor as possible for these events. (Full article...)
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe was also one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; although he was orphaned at a very young age when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allan's. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". (Full article...)
Image 12Largest self-reported ancestry groups in New England. Americans of Irish descent form a plurality in most of Massachusetts, while Americans of English descent form a plurality in much of the central parts of Vermont and New Hampshire as well as nearly all of Maine. (from New England)
Image 21A political and geographical map of New England shows the coastal plains in the southeast, and hills, mountains and valleys in the west and the north. (from New England)
Image 26The MBTA Commuter Rail serves eastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, radiating from downtown Boston, with planned service to New Hampshire. The CTrail system operates the Shore Line East and Hartford Line, covering coastal Connecticut, Hartford, and Springfield, Massachusetts. (from New England)
... that Cora Agnes Benneson, one of the first female lawyers in New England, was rejected by Harvard Law School because "the equipments were too limited to make suitable provision for receiving women"?
... that the tugboat R. B. Forbes was the first iron mercantile vessel built in New England?
... that in 1909, the American Brass Company manufactured two-thirds of all the brass in the United States, consumed a third of all copper produced in the U.S., and was the largest fabricator of nonferrous metal in the world?
... that author and anti-globalization advocate Tim Costello started his writing career in the back of his truck while traveling as a long-haul truck driver?
Originally inhabited by two major Native American tribes, much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by France during its early colonial period. France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the French and Indian War. For many years, the nearby colonies, especially New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area. Settlers who held land titles granted by these colonies were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, which eventually prevailed in creating an independent state, the Vermont Republic. Founded in 1777 during the Revolutionary War, the republic lasted for fourteen years. Vermont is one of seventeen U.S. states (along with Texas, Hawaii, the brief Republic of West Florida, and each of the original Thirteen Colonies) to have had a sovereign government in the past. In 1791, Vermont joined the United States as the 14th state, the first outside the original 13 Colonies. It abolished slavery while still independent, and upon joining the Union became the first state to have done so. (Full article...)
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