Timeline of Cambridge, Massachusetts facts for kids

Welcome to the exciting history of Cambridge, Massachusetts! This city, located in the United States, has a long and interesting past. It's famous for its amazing universities and for being a place where many important events happened. Let's explore the timeline of Cambridge, from its early days to modern times.

Cambridge's Early Years

The 17th Century: Beginnings

• 1630 - English settlers arrived and chose this spot for a new town.
• 1632 - The first meeting house for the First Parish was built.
• 1636
  • A "New College" was started, which would later become Harvard.
  • The town, then called Newe Towne, was officially established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• 1638
  • Newe Towne was renamed "Cambridge."
  • John Harvard, a minister, gave his books and half his money to the college.
• 1639
  • The New College was renamed Harvard College to honor John Harvard.
  • The first printing press in Cambridge began operating.
• 1640 - The Bay Psalm Book, an important early book, was printed.
• 1642 - Harvard held its first graduation ceremony.
• 1662 - The Great Bridge was built.
• 1663 - The Bible was published in the Algonquin language.
• 1682 - The Cooper-Frost-Austin House was built around this time.
• 1685 - The Hooper-Lee-Nichols House was built.
• 1688 - Cambridge Village, which later became Newton, separated from Cambridge.

The 18th Century: Growth and Revolution

The Vassall House, now a historic site.

• 1713 - The town of Lexington separated from Cambridge.
• 1720 - Harvard's Massachusetts Hall was built.
• 1727 - The William Brattle House was built.
• 1759
  • The Christ Church community was founded.
  • The Vassall House was built.
• 1760 - Apthorp House was built.
• 1767 - Elmwood (a residence) was built.
• 1775
  • April 18: William Dawes rode through town to warn people before the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
  • April 19: Small fights happened between British soldiers and American patriots in North Cambridge.
  • July 3: George Washington took command of the American army here.
• 1780 - May 19: New England's Dark Day occurred, when the sky turned unusually dark.
• 1782 - Harvard Medical School was founded.
• 1793 - The West Boston Bridge was built.
• 1796 - The Fresh Pond Hotel was built.

Cambridge in the 1800s

Early 1800s: New Beginnings

Massachusetts Medical College, Mason Street

Massachusetts Medical College, Grove Street

Harvard Medical School quadrangle in Longwood Medical Area.

• 1800 - Printer William Hilliard started his business.
• 1805 - The Harvard Botanic Garden was created.
• 1807
  • The Cambridge and Concord Turnpike opened.
  • Little Cambridge became a separate town called Brighton.
  • West Cambridge, later called Arlington, also separated.
• 1809 - Craigie's Bridge opened.
• 1815 - Harvard's University Hall was built.
• 1817 - Harvard Law School was founded.
• 1818 - The New England Glass Company was started.
• 1826 - Frederic Tudor and Nathaniel Wyeth began harvesting ice from Fresh Pond.
• 1830 - The city's population reached 6,072 people.
• 1831 - Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded.
• 1832 - The Cambridge Fire Department was established.

Mid-1800s: Growing City

An 1836 drawing of Harvard alumni leaving the First Parish Meeting House.

• 1837
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a famous poet, moved to Craigie House.
  • The East Cambridge Anti-Slavery Society was formed.
• 1839 - The Harvard College Observatory was founded to study the stars.
• 1840 - The population grew to 8,409 people.
• 1846
  • The Cambridge Chronicle newspaper began publishing.
  • Cambridge officially became a city.
  • James D. Green became the first mayor.
  • The population reached 12,500 people.
• 1847 - A large telescope, the Great Refractor, was installed.

Late 1800s: Innovation and Community

Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University, inside Harvard Yard.

Sanders Theatre at Harvard University.

• 1852 - The Cambridge Water Works Corporation was created.
• 1854 - Cambridge Cemetery was officially opened.
• 1856 - The population grew to 20,473 people.
• 1858 - The Harvard Glee Club was founded.
• 1859 - The Museum of Comparative Zoology was founded.
• 1861 - Veterans' Services were established to help former soldiers.
• 1866 - The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology was founded.
• 1867 - The Episcopal Theological School was founded.

The West Boston Bridge around 1864, before the Longfellow Bridge.

• 1869 - The Old Cambridge Baptist Church was built.
• 1870 - A Soldiers' Monument was dedicated on Cambridge Common.
• 1873 - The Harvard Crimson newspaper began publishing.
• 1875 - The F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery was built. The population reached 47,838.
• 1876 - Harvard Lampoon, a humor magazine, began publishing.
• 1877 - Harvard's Memorial Hall was built.
• 1878 - The Cambridge Tribune newspaper began publishing.
• 1879 - The Cambridge Public Library was established.
• 1880 - The population reached 52,669 people.
• 1882 - The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women was started, which later became Radcliffe College.
• 1883 - The Cambridge YMCA opened.
• 1886 - Cambridge Hospital and several schools were established.

Cambridge, Massachusetts City Hall, located at 795 Massachusetts Avenue.

• 1889 - City Hall was built.
• 1890 - The population reached 70,028 people.
• 1891 - The Harvard Bridge was built.
• 1893 - A road was built around Fresh Pond.
• 1894 - Radcliffe College was officially chartered.
• 1895 - W. E. B. Du Bois, a famous civil rights leader, earned his PhD from Harvard University.
• 1900 - The population reached 91,886 people.

Cambridge in the 1900s

Early 1900s: Modernizing City

Robinson Hall at Harvard University, built in 1904.

Swedenborg Chapel, built in 1904.

Harvard Yard.

• 1901 - The Swedenborg Chapel was built.
• 1903 - The Busch–Reisinger Museum opened.
• 1905 - The Cambridge Historical Society was founded.
• 1906 - The Longfellow Bridge opened.
• 1908 - Harvard's Business School was established.
• 1909 - The Lesley School was founded.
• 1910 - The population reached 104,839 people.
• 1912 - New subway stations opened at Kendall/MIT, Central, and Harvard.
• 1913 - Harvard University Press was established.
• 1915 - The Anderson Memorial Bridge and Harvard's Widener Library were built.
• 1916 - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) moved to Cambridge.

An aerial view of Harvard Square in 1921.

The Boston University Bridge.

• 1923 - The historic Washington Elm on Cambridge Common died.
• 1924 - The Church of St. Paul (Harvard Square) was built.
• 1927 - The John W. Weeks Bridge was built.
• 1928 - The Boston University Bridge was built.
• 1930 - The First Church of Christ, Scientist was built.
• 1932 - The Harvard Book Store opened. Harvard's Memorial Church was built.
• 1936 - Harvard's Graduate School of Public Administration was established.
• 1940 - Cambridge citizens voted to use a new way of electing their city council and school committee.

MIT Main Campus Aerial.

• 1941 - Harvard's Houghton Library was built.
• 1947 - A very early Computer bug was found at the Harvard Computation Lab.

Houghton Library exterior.

Mid-1900s: Post-War Developments

• 1950 - Cardullo's Gourmet Shop opened.
• 1952 - The MIT School of Industrial Management was established.
• 1953 - The Brattle Theatre began showing movies.
• 1954 - Wang Laboratories and Cheapo Records opened.

Out of Town News, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• 1955 - Out of Town News and Casablanca bar opened. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory moved to Cambridge.
• 1958 - Club 47 (a music venue) opened. The Lisp (programming language) was invented at MIT.
• 1959 - Café Pamplona opened. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory was established.
• 1960 - Bartley's restaurant opened. Let's Go travel guides began publishing.

Julia Child's kitchen at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

National Bureau of Economic Research building.

• 1961 - Famous chef Julia Child moved to Cambridge.
• 1962 - The Fresh Pond Shopping Center was built. Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts was built.
• 1963 - The Cambridge Historical Commission was established.
• 1965 - The Head of the Charles Regatta, a famous rowing race, was established.
• 1969 - The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded.
• 1970 - The Middle East restaurant opened.
• 1971 - Grendel's Den pub opened.
• 1972 - The Longfellow National Historic Site was established.
• 1973 - The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was established.
• 1974 - The Cambridge Food Co-op was established.
• 1975 - Coffee Connection opened.
• 1977 - Cambridge Rindge and Latin School was formed. The River Festival began.

Cambridge Rindge and Latin School building.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) at Harvard.

• 1978 - The National Bureau of Economic Research became active.
• 1979 - Harvard's Film Archive opened.

Late 1900s: Technology and Community

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

• 1980 - The American Repertory Theater and the MIT Museum became active.
• 1981 - The American Academy of Arts and Sciences moved to Cambridge.
• 1982 - The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research was founded. Biogen and Toscanini's ice cream opened. Cambridge established "sister city" relationships with Coimbra, Portugal, and Gaeta, Italy.
• 1983 - The Harvard Square Homeless Shelter was established. Sister city relationships were made with Tsukuba Science City, Japan, and Dublin, Ireland.
• 1984 - The MIT Media Lab was established. The Porter MBTA Red Line station opened.

The Tasty sandwich shop in Harvard Square, 1985.

• 1985 - The Alewife (MBTA station) subway station opened. Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum was built.
• 1986 - The Garment District (clothing retailer) opened.
• 1987 - Cambridge became a Peace Messenger City. Sister city relationships were established with Yerevan, Armenia; San José Las Flores, El Salvador; and Catania, Italy.
• 1988 - Cambridge Community Television was established.
• 1989 - A sister city relationship was established with Kraków, Poland.
• 1990 - The CambridgeSide Galleria shopping mall was built.

Cambridgeside Galleria, built in 1990.

• 1991 - The City Bicycle Committee and the Ig Nobel Prize were established.
• 1992 - Boston Dynamics (a robotics firm) was founded. A sister city relationship was established with Florence, Italy.

Boston Dynamics BigDog.

• 1993 - The city's master plan was published.
• 1994 - The Islamic Society of Boston mosque opened.
• 1995 - Kendall Square Cinema opened.
• 1996 - Cambridge Health Alliance was established.
• 1997 - The city's website went online. A sister city relationship was established with Galway, Ireland.

Akamai's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• 1998 - Akamai Technologies began business. Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society was founded.
• 1999 - The Cambridge Innovation Center opened.

Part of the world-famous Harvard Yard.

One of many entrances to Harvard Yard.

Harvard University.

The Out of Town News, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2019.

Cambridge in the 21st Century

• 2000 - Zipcar began business. MIT's Kismet (robot) was introduced.
• 2001 - A new water treatment plant opened at Fresh Pond.
• 2003 - Novartis research division was headquartered in the city. A sister city relationship was established with Santo Domingo Oeste, Dominican Republic.

Out of Town News Harvard Square.

Broad Institute.

• 2004 - The Broad Institute and the Community Charter School of Cambridge were established. MIT's Stata Center was built. Facebook was launched at Harvard College.
• 2005 - Sister city relationships were established with Cienfuegos, Cuba; Yuseong, Korea; and Haidian, China.
• 2006 - HubSpot began business.

The new Media Lab expansion (Building E14).

• 2007 - The Microsoft New England Research & Development Center opened. The Cambridge Science Festival began.
• 2008 - Google Inc. opened a branch in Cambridge. ImprovBoston moved to Cambridge.
• 2009 - Trader Joe's grocery opened at Fresh Pond.
• 2010 - The population reached 105,162 people.
• 2011 - Area Four restaurant and Veggie Galaxy restaurant opened.
• 2012 - MIT/Harvard edX was launched, offering online courses.
• 2013 - An MIT officer was killed during the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
• 2014 - The city's open data portal was launched.
• 2015 - A major fire occurred in December.

Spot robot being tested.

Images for kids

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  George Washington in Cambridge, 1775

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  Harvard alumni procession, Harvard Square, 1836

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  Cambridge Observatory, 1849

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  Harvard Square, ca.1880s-1900s

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  Washington Elm, Cambridge Common, ca.1880s-1900s

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  Cambridge Public Library, 1891

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  Central Square and Mass. Ave., 1910s

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  Overview of Harvard Square area, 1919

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  Harvard Bridge and MIT, ca.1920