6 February: Massachusetts Ratification Day

Massachusetts was one of the original 13 US states, the 6th state to ratify the Constitution in on this date in 1788.

1. The name Massachusetts comes from an Algonquian word which has been translated as "a big hill place", "near the great hill", "by the blue hills", "at the little big hill" or "at the range of hills".
2. The highest Point is Mt. Greylock at 3,491 feet (1,064m) above sea level. The largest city is Boston, which is also the capital.
3. The sports of Basketball and volleyball were both invented in Massachusetts. When it was first played in 1895, volleyball was known as "Mintonette".
4. Also invented in the state were chocolate chip cookies, Boston cream pie, frozen food, computers and Sewing machines.
5. The state can also lay claim to a number of American "firsts": the first public elementary school, the first public park, the first Lighthouse and the first subway system.
6. Massachusetts is also home to the coldest place in the known universe. It's in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is 810 trillionths of a degree Fahrenheit above absolute zero.
7. The paper for almost all US banknotes is produced in Massachusetts by a company called Crane & Co. Crane & Co. also exports paper to other countries for their banknotes.
8. State symbols include: Bird: Black-Capped Chickadee; Fish: Cod; Insect: Ladybird; Flower: Mayflower; Tree: American elm; Gem: Rhodonite and Beverage: Cranberry juice.
9. Four former US Presidents come from Massachusetts: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and George Herbert Walker Bush. Other famous people from here include writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa M Alcott, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, Jack Kerouac, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Dr Seuss; actors Ben Affleck, Bette Davis, Geena Davis, Matt LeBlanc, Leonard Nimoy, Kurt Russell, James Spader and Uma Thurman; talk show hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien; artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, singer Donna Summer; and inventors Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell.
10. Things which are illegal in Massachusetts include happy hours, eating Peanuts in church, eating more than three Sandwiches at a funeral, selling ducklings, Rabbits or chicks that have been painted a different colour, frightening Pigeons and carrying a gorilla in the back seat of your car.

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