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Poet, critic, and translator Pinsky (b.1940) served as US poet laureate and now teaches at Boston University.

Bostonian King Camp Gillette invented the safety razor with disposable blades in 1901.

A witch may not have been killed in Salem since 1692, but witchcraft paraphernalia fills many stores, and several sites such as the Witch Museum (19 Washington Sq North) tell the tale of this dark episode. The city is more proud of its China Trade days (1780s–1880s), which are engagingly recounted on National Park walking tours. Visit the Peabody Essex Museum (East India Sq) to see the treasures sea captains brought home from distant ports.

Failed businessman Samuel Adams became Boston’s master politician in the tumultuous years leading up to the revolution (see Samuel Adams’ Tea Tax Speech (1773)). Adams signed the Declaration of Independence and served in both Continental Congresses. As governor of Massachusetts, he joined Paul Revere in laying the cornerstone of the State House (see Massachusetts State House)in 1795.

Elias Howe invented the sewing machine in Cambridge in 1845, but spent decades securing patent rights.

Ether was first used for surgical anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846.

The restrained Italian Renaissance exterior of this 1900 concert hall barely hints at the acoustic perfection of the interior hall as designed by Harvard physics professor Walter Clement Sabine. Home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the hall’s 2,361 seats are usually sold out for their extensive season of classical concerts, as well as for the lighter orchestral fare of the Boston Pops (see Symphony Hall).

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in his Boston laboratory in 1876.

In 1974, US District Court judge Garrity ruled that African-American students had been denied their constitutional rights to the best available education. He ordered a desegregation plan for Boston’s 200 schools, setting off protests, some violent, in predominantly white neighborhoods.

Established in 1847 from the private holdings of Dr. John Collins Warren, this museum contains the former anatomical teaching collections of the Harvard Medical School, including clinical examples of rare deformities and diseases. Among the displays are several delicate skeletons of stillborn conjoined twins.