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Attleboro Timeline
- 1634 The first English settlers arrive in the territory that is present day Attleboro
- 1669 John Woodcock establishes a small family settlement and tavern in North Attleborough that will later come under native American attack during King Philip's War (1675-76)
- 1680 For the first time, settlers hire a teacher to instruct local boys in reading and writing
- 1694 Attleborough is incorporated as a town from a portion of Rehoboth known as the North Purchase
- 1696 The first Attleborough town meeting on record is held
- 1698 Attleborough appoints its first schoolmaster and the following year hires a teacher to instruct both boys and girls to "read English, and write, and cast accounts"
- 1714 Construction of the town's First Congregational Church meetinghouse, in North Attleborough, is completed
- 1743 Work begins on the town's Second Congregational Church meetinghouse, in Attleborough, and Reverend Peter Thacher is elected minister
- 1745 The present day town of Cumberland is taken from Attleborough and annexed to the Colony of Rhode Island by Royal Charter
- 1768 Attleborough town meeting votes to authorize the building of a powder house for safe keeping of the town's stock of ammunition
- 1773 Town meeting voters adopt a statement asserting that their rights are given by nature, but are being violated by the British Crown
- 1776 Members of a town committee instruct Attleborough's representative to the Massachusetts General Court, Captain John Stearns, that if the Continental Congress votes for independence from Great Britain, they will defend the decision "with our lives and fortunes"
- 1779 Attleborough sends three representatives to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in Cambridge
- 1780 A settler known as "the Frenchman" establishes a brass working forge in North Attleborough village, giving birth to the button-making and jewelry industries in town
- 1781 Colonel David Cobb, a native of Attleborough, is appointed aide de camp to Gen. George Washington of the Continental Army
- 1809 Attleborough Manufacturing Co., operated by the Dodge family, opens a cotton textile factory and later builds Dodgeville to provide housing, a school and a store for its workers and their families
- 1812 Atherton Manufacturing Co., later Hebron Manufacturing Co., begins production of textiles at what will become Hebronville, a village of tenement housing for mill employees and their families
- 1825 Town meeting decides that Attleborough should purchase an almshouse for the poor, which opens two years later
- 1827 Col. Willard Blackinton establishes a business that makes power loom shuttles for textile manufacturers
- 1827 Attleborough voters authorize selectmen to seek proposals for a town meeting house, which is built in 1828 at a cost of $80
- 1845 Two people are killed when the Attleborough almshouse on Watery Hill is destroyed by fire
- 1855 Nearly 25 jewelry, medal and button manufacturers are operating in Attleborough
- 1856 For the first time, a study committee recommends that due to rapidly growing but separate population centers, Attleborough and North Attleborough be divided into two towns, but no vote is taken
- 1857 The Attleborough Weekly Bulletin begins publication as the town's first newspaper, but goes out of business within a year
- 1857 The town's first Roman Catholic church, Saint Mary's, is built in North Attleborough
- 1861-1865 Hundreds of Attleborough men serve in the Civil War - mainly in the 7th, 18th, 24th, 26th, 40th, 47th and 58th Massachusetts infantry regiments - with town meeting voters approving $100 bounties for voluntary enlistments and aid payments to soldiers' families
- 1870 The textile mills at Dodgeville and Hebronville now operate under the common ownership of Hebron Manufacturing Co.
- 1871 A new weekly newspaper, The Attleborough Chronicle, is published for the first time
- 1875 The Attleborough Advocate begins weekly publication and 14 years later becomes The Attleborough Daily Sun
- 1884 Construction of the town's first high schools - at Bank and Peck Streets in Attleborough and on High Street in North Attleborough - is completed 18 years after the town meeting vote establishing them
- 1885 The town's second Roman Catholic church, Saint John's in Attleborough, is dedicated by Bishop Hendricken of Providence
- 1886 Attleborough's first theatre, Bates Opera House, opens its doors at Park and North Main Streets
- 1887 By 23 votes of more than 1,300 ballots cast, the town's voters approve a referendum dividing Attleborough and North Attleborough into separate communities
- 1898 The Great Fire sweeps through Attleborough, devastating four acres of the downtown area, destroying more than a dozen businesses and factories valued at more than $750,000, and leaving 1,500 people out of work.
- 1903 James Solomon, a peddlar of herbal remedies, opens a locally-financed $400,000 cancer sanatorium, later to be known as Attleboro Springs, at what today is LaSalette Shrine
- 1913 A Victorian mansion donated to Attleborough and renovated with private funds opens its doors as Sturdy Memorial Hospital, with beds for 15 patients
- 1913 L.G. Balfour Co. opens its first jewelry manufacturing plant in town
- 1914 Attleboro is re-incorporated as a city and Harold Sweet is elected its first mayor
- 1915 Bates Opera House becomes the first Attleboro theatre to screen a feature-length silent film: D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation
- 1917-
- 1919 More than 800 men from Attleboro serve in the U.S. armed forces during the Great War (World War I)
- 1919-
- 1920 Major league baseball stars Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby and others - paid by wealthy local businessmen - play in the "Little World Series" won by Attleboro in 1919 and North Attleborough in 1920
- 1921 Attleboro and North Attleborough begin their long-running Thanksgiving high school football rivalry
- 1938 A powerful hurricane strikes Attleboro, causing widespread property damage and knocking out electrical power across the city
- 1941-1945 More than 2,500 Attleboro men and women serve in the U.S. armed forces during World War II
- 1949 Cyril Brennan is elected to the first of his record eight consecutive two-year terms as mayor
- 1950 Attleboro's first and only radio station, WARA, begins broadcasting at 1320 on the AM dial
- 1953 Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette re-open the former Attleboro Springs as a major seminary and religious shrine
- 1964 A major explosion rips through Thompson Chemical Co. in Hebronville, destroying half of the factory and killing seven people
- 1966 The U.S. Army launches "Operation Attleboro," an assault on Viet Cong supply lines along the Cambodian border led by its Attleboro-based 196th Light Infantry Brigade
- 1971 The Attleboro Sun and The Evening Chronicle of North Attleborough merge into a single daily newspaper: The Sun Chronicle
- 1978 A powerful Nor'easter to be recalled as the Blizzard of '78 dumps between two and three feet of snow on Attleboro, leaving much of the city paralyzed for days
- 1983 School committee member Brenda Reed is elected the first woman mayor of Attleboro
- 1985 City councilor and local businessman Kai Shang defeats Reed in her re-election bid to become Attleboro's first Asian-American mayor
- 1996 L.G. Balfour Co. merges with competitor ArtCarved and moves all Attleboro jewelry manufacturing operations to Texas
- 1998 Radio station WARA changes call letters to WJYT and drops local programming in favor of a Spanish format
- 1999 Fire destroys LaSalette Shrine's Provincial House, the former Attleboro Springs Sanatorium, killing one priest
- 2003 At age 27, Kevin Dumas becomes the youngest person ever elected mayor of Attleboro
- 2008 In one of the city's largest heists, thieves disable alarms and cut through a roof to steal $2 million in gold, diamonds and jewelry from EA. Dion Incorporated