Happy Lafayette Day?

An 1824 advertisement in the aptly named Independent Chronicle and Boston Patriot advertising souvenirs of the Marquis de Lafayette.

In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution for his support against the British, sat in seclusion in France. He had been at odds with the French establishment since Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1824,  the American Congress passed a resolution inviting then-President Monroe to invite Lafayette to tour the States. Lafayette first arrived in New York, but traveled throughout the country to great fanfare. In Boston, he was greeted on the Common in “an occasion of special splendor, with a military review followed by a dinner for 1200 people under a marquee erected for the event.”

Festivities on May 20th, Lafayette Day conclude with the annual decoration of the Lafayette Monument (1924, the centennial of his visit) on the Boston Common.

Happy Evacuation Day

“It was one of these wink, wink, nudge, nudge things in it was a way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in a cloak of historical significance,” said Charles Swift, a historian who is the executive director of the Gibson House Museum in Back Bay. “Also, for Irish politicians, Evacuation Day was a way to tweak the British.”

from: This South Boston map won’t help on St. Patrick’s Day, Boston Globe, March 17, 2008

The Boston Tea Party for Kids

The Boston Tea Party: December 1773
illustrated by H. W. McVickar

published by Dodd Mead & Company, 1882

Read the entire book.