History
Founded by the English colonist William Pynchon, in 1636 the city was named after his hometown of Springfield, Essex in England. The city of Springfield has played an important role throughout American history, due largely to its geography. Founded on some of New England's most fertile soil, it is located midway between Boston and Albany; it is only slightly farther from New York City. In 1777, Springfield's location led George Washington and Henry Knox to found the fledgling United States' National Armory at Springfield, which produced the first American musket in 1794, and later the famous Springfield rifle. From 1777 until its closing during the Vietnam War, the Springfield Armory attracted skilled laborers to Springfield, making it the United States' longtime epicenter for precision manufacturing. Springfielders produced many of America's most significant innovations, including the first American-English dictionary (1805, Merriam Webster); the first use of interchangeable parts and the assembly line in manufacturing, (1819, Thomas Blanchard;) the first American horseless car, (1825, Thomas Blanchard;) the discovery and patent of vulcanized rubber, (1844, Charles Goodyear;) the first American gasoline-powered car, (1893, Duryea Brothers); the first successful motorcycle company, (1901, "Indian"); one of America's first commercial radio stations, (1921, WBZ from the Hotel Kimball); and most famous for the world's second-most-popular sport, basketball, (1891, Dr. James Naismith).
Read more about this topic: Springfield, Massachusetts
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)