Boston: two lanterns, a grasshopper and a wave of molasses

Boston is where a revolution began — and also the city of a sheltered green, a weathervane, a church on stilts and a famous ride on the water. This quiz invites you to explore its history in 20 questions with pictures, for Bostonians who think they know their streets as well as for visitors.

What had the Tea Act really done to the colonists' tea, and what does the city's name mean? What was the Common used for during two centuries, what pen name did a sixteen-year-old printer's apprentice choose, and what shape turns in the wind above the «Cradle of Liberty»? Who stood up in court for the soldiers of King Street, and which faraway city once wanted to carry off the Old State House?

For whom did the two lanterns shine, and on which hill was the famous battle really fought? What second trade did a silversmith practice, what was a young artillery hero's business before the war, how did a frigate earn her nickname, and how did the stone for a granite obelisk reach its hilltop? What happened in a hospital amphitheater one October morning, how did a bay become a neighborhood, what holds up a great church, what slowed the firemen in 1872, what inspired a fleet of pedal craft, what traveled under the Common in 1897 — and what was decided after a tank burst in 1919?

The pictures are old photographs and photochroms, lithographs, engravings and paintings, all in the public domain.