This week in New England history: March 7-13

By NBP Staff | March 7, 2016, 12:40 EST

Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. (Wikimedia)

A list of significant dates in New England history:

March 7

1644: Massachusetts establishes the first bicameral (or two-chamber) legislature in the colonies. This legislative format served as a model for the Congress of the United States, established by the U.S. Constitution in 1787.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

March 8

1841: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Civil War veteran, Harvard Law professor, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Associate Justice of U.S. Supreme Court is born in Boston.

Basketball

March 11

1892: The first public basketball game is played in Springfield, Massachusetts.

March 13

1677: Massachusetts purchases the title to Maine for the bargain price of 1,250 pounds sterling. Maine remains under Massachusetts jurisdiction until 1820 when it becomes a separate state as part of the Missouri Compromise.