Boston is the capital and the most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a state of the United States of America. Founded in 1630, Boston is one of the oldest and most culturally significant cities in the United States. Boston is recognized as a gamma global city. Its economy is based on higher education, research, health care, finance, and technology, principally biotechnology. Citizens of Boston are called Bostonians. ------------------------------------------------------------ The city lies at the centre of Greater Boston, which also includes the cities of Cambridge, Quincy, and Newton, the town of Brookline, and many suburban communities farther from Boston. The Greater Boston area encompasses parts of the states of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The city also lies at the centre of the Boston-Worcester-Manchester Combined Statistical Area (CSA), the fifth largest metropolitan area in the United States.-----------------------------------Boston, Massachusetts In the political events which have affected the history of the entire country, and in shaping the thought of a people who have come to be a great nation, Boston has played a leading part. Boston, Massachusetts -- Boston by Henry Cabot Lodge ------------------------------------------------- Boston was founded on November 17, 1630, by Puritan colonists from England, on a peninsula called Shawmut by its original Native American inhabitants. The peninsula was connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, and surrounded by the waters of Massachusetts Bay and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River. Boston's early European settlers first called the area Trimountaine. They later renamed the town for Boston, England, in Lincolnshire, from which several prominent "pilgrim" colonists emigrated. A majority of Boston's early citizens were Puritans. Massachusetts Bay Colony's original governor, John Winthrop, gave a famous sermon entitled "a City upon a Hill," which captured the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God. (Winthrop also led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement which is regarded as a key founding document of the city.) Puritan ethics moulded an extremely stable and well-structured society in Boston. For example, shortly after Boston's settlement, Puritans founded America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635), and America's first college, Harvard College (1636). Hard work, moral uprightness, and an emphasis on education remain part of Boston's culture. Until the 1760s, Boston was America's largest, wealthiest, and most influential city.----------------------------During the early 1770s, British attempts to exert control on the thirteen colonies, primarily via taxation, prompted Bostonians to initiate the American Revolution. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and several early battles occurred in or near the city, including the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. During this period, Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride. After the Revolution, Boston quickly became one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports because it was the closest major American port to Europe — exports included rum, fish, salt, and tobacco. During this era, descendants of old Boston families became regarded, in the American popular mind, as the nation's social and cultural elites; they were later dubbed the Boston Brahmins. In 1822, Boston was chartered as a city. By the mid-1800s, the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance. Until the early 1900s, Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centres, and was notable for its garment production, leather goods, and machinery industries. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and allowed for a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, an even denser network of railroads facilitated the region's industry and commerce. From the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, Boston flourished culturally — it became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. It also became a centre of the abolitionist movement.---------------------------In the 1820s, Boston's ethnic composition began to change dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Groups like the Irish and Italians moved into the city and brought with them Roman Catholicism. (This trend of immigration continued throughout the 1800s - most famously when the Potato Famine hit Ireland.) Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community and since the early 20th century the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics — prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill and John F. Fitzgerald.