Portal:New England

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The New England Portal

Location of New England (in red) in the United States

New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean are to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, the second-largest city in New England, Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island.

In 1620, the Pilgrims established Plymouth Colony, the second successful settlement in British America after the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia, founded in 1607. Ten years later, Puritans established Massachusetts Bay Colony north of Plymouth Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars until the English colonists and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquian allies. (Full article...)

Selected article

A humpback whale, underwater
A humpback whale, underwater
The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is a species of baleen whale that can be found of the coast of New England. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from 12–16 metres (39–52 ft) and weigh approximately 36,000 kilograms (79,000 lb). The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the water. Males produce a complex song, which lasts for 10 to 20 minutes and is repeated for hours at a time. The purpose of the song is not yet clear, although it appears to have a role in mating.

Found in oceans and seas around the world, humpback whales typically migrate up to 25,000 kilometres (16,000 mi) each year. Humpbacks feed only in summer, in polar waters, and migrate to tropical or subtropical waters to breed and give birth in the winter. During the winter, humpbacks fast and live off their fat reserves. The species' diet consists mostly of krill and small fish. Humpbacks have a diverse repertoire of feeding methods, including the bubble net feeding technique. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Daguerreotype of Poe, 1848
Daguerreotype of Poe, 1848
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe was also one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; although he was orphaned at a very young age when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allan's. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". (Full article...)

Selected picture

Paul Revere's 1770 engraving of the Boston Massacre
Paul Revere's 1770 engraving of the Boston Massacre
British map of intrenchments during the Boston campaign of the American Revolutionary War
The following are images from various New England-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know (auto-generated)

Related portals

More did you know...

Selected State

Flag of Massachusetts
Flag of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
Incorporated 1775
Co-ordinates 42.3°N 71.8°W

Massachusetts is the 7th least extensive, but the 14th most populous and the 3rd most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state features three separate metropolitan areas: Greater Boston in the east - which also includes all of Rhode Island - and the Springfield and Pittsfield metropolitan areas in the west.

Massachusetts has played a significant historical, cultural, and commercial role in American history. Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, passengers of the Mayflower. Harvard University, founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. In 1692, the towns surrounding Salem experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem Witch Trials. Originally dependent on fishing, agriculture, and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. In the 21st century, Massachusetts is a leader in higher education, health care technology, high technology, and financial services (Full article...)

Topics

Subcategories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

WikiProjects

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache