1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
On the night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathered at the Customs House in Boston and began taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The troops had been sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by Parliament, which lacked American representation. Private Hugh Montgomery was hit, leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd, followed by the other soldiers a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying: Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell, while three more were injured. Although it is unclear whether Attucks, an African American, was the first to fall as is commonly believed, the deaths of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the American Revolutionary War. Future president John Adams and Josiah Quincy agreed to defend the soldiers at their trial as a show of support of the colonial justice system. Two of them were found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded with an “M” for murder as punishment. The event became a rallying cry for Patriots — thanks in part to a widely circulated engraving of the massacre by Paul Revere — and a month later the war’s first battle took place at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.
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