- published: 02 May 2013
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Boston is an 18th century trick-taking card game played throughout the Western world apart from Britain, forming an evolutionary link between Hombre and Solo Whist. Appropriately named after a key location in the American War of Independence, it was probably devised in France in the 1770s, combining the 52-card pack and logical ranking system of partnership Whist with a range of solo and alliance bids borrowed from Quadrille (card game). Other lines of descent and hybridization produced the games of Twenty-five, Preference and Skat.
By the late 18th century English players were forsaking Quadrille for partnership Whist. In France, Quadrille-playing society was finding itself rapidly decimated by the guillotine. This left room for the development of a new game of the same alliance genre as Quadrille, but of simpler, more populist structure, and free from what must have been regarded as the "effete" associations of aristocratic women's games. Such is Boston Whist, le whist bostonien, which became the great nineteenth century alternative to Quadrille, almost everywhere in the Western world, except Britain, where, however, it eventually emerged as Solo Whist. Boston is usually, but misleadingly, represented as a variation of classic partnership Whist made by abandoning the fixed partnership principle. It is better regarded as a Solo or Alliance game created by grafting the simplest mechanism of Whist onto the structural stock of Quadrille.
Boston (pronounced /ˈbɒstən/ or locally /ˈbɔstən/ ( listen)) is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper, covering only 48.43 square miles, had a population of 617,594 according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Boston is also the anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region is home to 7.6 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.
In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the city on the Shawmut Peninsula. During the late 18th century, Boston was the location of several major events during the American Revolution, including the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Several early battles of the American Revolution, such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, occurred within the city and surrounding areas. Through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the peninsula. After American independence was attained Boston became a major shipping port and manufacturing center, and its rich history now helps attract many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone attracting over 20 million every year. The city was the site of several firsts, including America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635), and the first subway system in the United States (1897).