Massachusetts belongs to the Northeastern United States and was formed from two of the first English colonies, Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony. Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by the pilgrims of the famous sailing ship "Mayflower" and was the first permanent English colony in New England. Established in 1630, Massachusetts Bay Colony took its name from the Massachusett people who lived in the region at the time. Other native tribes that inhabited the area prior to European colonization were the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomutuc and Mahican. 

With revolts such as the Boston Tea Party of 1773, in which activists threw shiploads of Chinese tea from the British East India Company into the sea in protest against British tax laws, key events in the run-up to the American Revolution took place in Massachusetts. The Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19^th April 1775 were the first battles of the Revolutionay War and Boston became also known as the "Cradle of Liberty". In 1788, Massachusetts was admitted to the Union as the sixth state. Like Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Massachusetts uses the term "Commonwealth" in its official state name, although this does not imply any political distinction from the other U.S. states. Due to its location on one of the largest bays on the Atlantic coast, Massachusetts is also known as "The Bay State".

While the capital Boston is the cultural and economic center of New England, Cambridge is not only home to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but also to Harvard University, the oldest university in the United States. The motto "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" is Latin for “By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.”

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