History
General George Washington gathered troops on Cambridge Common during the American Revolutionary War. A commemorative plaque marks the location of the Washington Elm, a tree under which a (likely false) legend claims Washington stood as he first assumed command of the Continental Army. Nearby is a trio of bronze cannons, a plaque for Henry Knox, and another for Tadeusz Kościuszko.
Slightly southeast of the centre of the Common is a memorial to the American Civil War with a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a covered area near the base of the memorial. On top of the memorial is a statue of a soldier.
Cambridge Common is also the site of an Irish Famine Memorial, dedicated on July 23, 1997 by then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and unveiled to an audience of 3,000 people. The Memorial sculpture was created by Maurice Harron, a sculptor from Derry, Northern Ireland. There is a very similar memorial in downtown Boston.
Read more about this topic: Cambridge Common
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.”
—J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)