Boston

Boston (pronounced ⁱ/ˈbɒstən/) is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston also served as the historic county seat of Suffolk County until Massachusetts disbanded county government in 1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles (124 km²) with an estimated population of 655,884 in 2014, making it the largest city in New England and the 24th largest city in the United States. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.7 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region is home to 8.1 million people, making it the sixth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.

One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon American independence from Great Britain, the city continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub, as well as a center for education and culture. Through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public school, Boston Latin School (1635), and first subway system (1897).

Massachusetts

Massachusetts ⁱ/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsᵻts/, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, Vermont and New Hampshire to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Massachusetts is the 7th smallest state by land area, but the 15th most populous and the 3rd most densely populated of the 50 states. With an estimated 6.8 million residents in 2015, it is the most populous of the six New England states and has the nation's sixth highest GDP per capita. The capital of Massachusetts, as well as the state's largest city, is Boston. The state features four separate metropolitan statistical areas: the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan area in the east, the Worcester metropolitan area in the center, the Springfield metropolitan area in the west, and the Barnstable metropolitan area in the southeast. Over 80% of Massachusetts' population currently lives in the Greater Boston Combined Statistical Area.

Guide book

A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place, designed for the use of visitors or tourists". Travel guides can also take the form of travel websites such as the free and open Wikivoyage.

It will usually include full details relating to accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying detail and historical and cultural information are often included. Different kinds of guide books exist, focusing on different aspects of travel, from adventure travel to relaxation, or aimed at travelers with different incomes, or focusing on sexual orientation or types of diet.

History

Antiquity

A forerunner of the guidebook was the periplus, an itinerary from landmark to landmark of the ports along a coast. A periplus such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea was a manuscript document that listed, in order, the ports and coastal landmarks, with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. This work was possibly written in the middle of the 1st century CE. It served the same purpose as the later Roman itinerarium of road stops.

Bee Gees

The Bee Gees were a pop music band formed in 1958. The band's line-up consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were successful for most of their decades of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as prominent performers of the disco music era in the late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies; Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the late 1970s and 1980s. They wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists.

Born on the Isle of Man to English parents, the Gibb brothers lived in Chorlton, Manchester, England, until the late 1950s, and formed the Rattlesnakes. The family then moved to Redcliffe, in Queensland, Australia, and then to Cribb Island. After achieving their first chart success in Australia as the Bee Gees with "Spicks and Specks" (their 12th single), they returned to the UK in January 1967 where producer Robert Stigwood began promoting them to a worldwide audience.