1. In 1879, the first electric streetlights in the United States were installed in Waltham, Massachusetts. The lights were designed and installed by Charles F. Brush, an inventor and entrepreneur from Cleveland, Ohio.

2. On January 22, 1901, the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave its first performance in its new home in Boston's Symphony Hall. The building, which was designed by architect Charles Follen McKim, is renowned for its acoustics.

3. In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, which recognized a woman's constitutional right to choose to have an abortion. The case was brought by a woman from Texas, but it had implications for women across the country, including those in Massachusetts.

4. On January 22, 2002, the Boston Red Sox hired Theo Epstein as their new general manager. Epstein, who was just 28 years old at the time, became the youngest GM in the history of Major League Baseball. He went on to help the Red Sox win their first World Series championship in 86 years in 2004.

5. In 2018, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to ban bump stocks, which are devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly, simulating the rate of fire of automatic weapons. The ban came in response to the mass shooting that took place in Las Vegas in 2017, where the shooter had used bump stocks to increase his firepower.