Boston/History

15 Historic Landmarks in Boston

15 landmarks with verified facts and stories

Boston Common
~2 min

Boston Common

139 Tremont St, Boston Common, Boston, 02111, United States

iconicparkfree

Boston Common is the oldest public park in America — set aside for communal use in 1634, four years after the city was founded and 142 years before anyone thought to declare independence.

Bunker Hill Monument
~2 min

Bunker Hill Monument

Monument Sq, Charlestown, MA 02129

viewpointfree

The Bunker Hill Monument is a 221-foot granite obelisk marking the site of the first major battle of the American Revolution — fought on June 17, 1775, just two months after Lexington and Concord.

Faneuil Hall & Quincy Market
~2 min

Faneuil Hall & Quincy Market

4 Fanueil Hall Marketplace, Downtown, Boston, 02109, United States

iconicfood

Faneuil Hall has been called the 'Cradle of Liberty' since Samuel Adams stood inside it in the 1760s and argued that taxation without representation was tyranny — a line of reasoning that would eventually get a lot of people killed and a country founded.

Fenway Park
~3 min

Fenway Park

4 Jersey St, Boston, MA 02215

iconicentertainment

Fenway Park is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball — opened on April 20, 1912 (the same week the Titanic sank, which buried the sports page coverage), and still hosting Red Sox games in a venue that was designed for the dead-ball era and has been accumulating character ever since.

Freedom Trail
~4 min

Freedom Trail

Boston Common Visitor Center, 139 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02111

iconicfree

The Freedom Trail is a 2.

Granary Burying Ground
~1 min

Granary Burying Ground

1 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02108

iconicfree

The Granary Burying Ground is where the American Revolution is buried — literally.

Harvard Yard
~2 min

Harvard Yard

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

iconicarchitecture

Harvard Yard is the oldest part of America's oldest university — a walled campus of red-brick buildings, ancient elm trees, and carefully maintained lawns that has been the symbolic heart of American higher education since 1636.

Massachusetts State House
~2 min

Massachusetts State House

24 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02133

iconicarchitecture

The Massachusetts State House sits at the top of Beacon Hill with a gold dome that has been the most recognisable landmark in Boston since Charles Bulfinch designed it in 1798.

North End (Little Italy)
~3 min

North End (Little Italy)

North End, Boston, 02113, United States

foodlocal-lifeculture

The North End is Boston's oldest residential neighbourhood and its most delicious — a dense tangle of narrow streets packed with Italian restaurants, bakeries, espresso bars, and salumerias that has been the heart of Boston's Italian-American community since immigrants from Sicily and Naples began arriving in the 1860s.

Old North Church
~2 min

Old North Church

193 Salem St, Boston, MA 02113

iconicarchitecture

Old North Church is where the American Revolution went from talk to action.

Old South Meeting House
~1 min

Old South Meeting House

310 Washington St, Boston, MA 02108

architecture

The Old South Meeting House is where the Boston Tea Party started — not the dumping of tea into the harbour, but the meeting on December 16, 1773, where 5,000 furious colonists packed into this building and debated what to do about three ships full of taxed British tea sitting in the harbour.

Paul Revere House
~2 min

Paul Revere House

19 North Square, Boston, MA 02113

architectureiconic

The Paul Revere House is the oldest remaining structure in downtown Boston — a wooden house built around 1680, bought by the silversmith and patriot in 1770, and preserved as a museum that gives you a direct, physical connection to the man who rode through the night shouting that the British were coming.

Trinity Church
~2 min

Trinity Church

206 Clarendon St, Back Bay, Boston, 02116, United States

architectureiconicart

Trinity Church is Henry Hobson Richardson's masterpiece — the building that launched an entire architectural movement (Richardsonian Romanesque) and has been ranked among the ten most significant buildings in American history by the American Institute of Architects.

Union Oyster House
~2 min

Union Oyster House

41 Union St, Boston, MA 02108

foodiconic

The Union Oyster House has been serving oysters, clam chowder, and broiled lobster in the same building since 1826, making it the oldest continuously operating restaurant in America.

USS Constitution
~2 min

USS Constitution

The Neck, Boston, 02129, United States

iconicmaritimefree

The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat in the world — launched in 1797, she fought in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812, and earned the nickname 'Old Ironsides' when British cannonballs were seen bouncing off her oak hull during an engagement with HMS Guerriere in 1812.

Explore history in Boston

GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.