The 14 Greatest People Born in Boston
One city, and a birth-certificate list that runs from the Revolution straight through to Marvel.
1Benjamin Franklin
Born on Milk Street in 1706, apprenticed to his brother's print shop, and gone to Philadelphia by seventeen.
2John F. Kennedy
Born in Brookline on the city's edge, the 35th President and the youngest elected.
3Edgar Allan Poe
Born in Boston in 1809 and the inventor of the detective story.
4Ralph Waldo Emerson
Boston-born essayist whose Transcendentalism shaped American thought.
5Samuel Adams
Boston-born organiser of the resistance that became the Revolution.
6Matt Damon
Cambridge-raised actor who wrote Good Will Hunting about his own city.
7Leonard Nimoy
West End boy who became Spock and directed some of the best Star Trek films.
8Donna Summer
Dorchester-born singer who defined disco and won five Grammys.
9Chris Evans
Sudbury-raised actor who played Captain America for a decade.
10Bobby Orr
Not born there, but the Bruins defenceman who redefined the position and won two Cups in Boston.
11New Kids on the Block
Dorchester boy band that sold 80 million records and invented the modern boy band template.
12Ben Affleck
Cambridge-raised actor and director, and the other half of Good Will Hunting.
13John Singleton Copley
Boston-born painter who portrayed the revolutionary generation before leaving for London.
14Conan O'Brien
Brookline-born writer for The Simpsons who then hosted late night for nearly thirty years.
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