Major Mike | Today in History 10/27 (Boston Martyrs)

Illustration shows members of the Society of Friends (or Quakers) as they are led to their execution, 17th century (© Interim Archives/Getty Images)

(1659) Massachusetts shows no tolerance for the Boston martyrs

The gallows on Boston Common receive two condemned men, Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson, for the crime of practicing their Quaker religion in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although the two had fled Oliver Cromwell’s intolerance in England, they’ve found no haven in this part of America.

The Boston martyrs is the name given in Quaker tradition to the three English members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661. Several other Friends lay under sentence of death at Boston in the same period, but had their punishments commuted to that of being whipped out of the colony from town to town.

“Mary Dyer led to execution on Boston Common, 1 June 1660”, by an unknown 19th century artist
wiki/Boston_martyrs

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(1659) Massachusetts shows no tolerance for the Boston martyrs.
Also on this day,

1275 | Amsterdam founded as Holland’s power center starts with a dam

Catastrophic flooding in the Low Countries is all too common, so the River Amstel gets a dam and the community surrounding it gets a name, ‘Aemstelredamme.’ The small town will grow into the 17th-century’s richest city in the world and one of the most important capitals in history, Amsterdam.

1871 | The power of the press brings down a Boss as Tweed arrested

Such is the dominance of New York power broker William ‘Boss’ Tweed’s well-oiled political machine, Tammany Hall, that his first arrest on corruption charges is achieved only through a long campaign of public shaming in the press, and a batch of brilliantly barbed political cartoons.

1904 | Transit gets rapid beneath the streets of New York City as NYC’s subway opens

More than 100,000 people pay a nickel each to take a first-day ride on something wondrous beneath New York City’s streets, the IRT Company’s new underground train system. The ‘subway’ will prove immediately popular to folks keen on escaping the crush of city streets above.

Today in History ^10/27/17

Subway train at an underground station to take on passengers in New York City, early 1900s (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

(1904) Transit gets rapid beneath the streets of New York City

More than 100,000 people pay a nickel each to take a first-day ride on something wondrous beneath New York City's streets, the IRT Company's new underground train system. The 'subway' will prove immediately popular to folks keen on escaping the crush of city streets above.

The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Opened in 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the world's oldest public transit systems, one of the world's most used metro systems, and the metro system with the most stations. It offers service 24 hours per day on every day of the year.