[5] As early as 1600 CE, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.

[21] Relationships alternated between peace and armed skirmishes between colonists and local Native American tribes, the bloodiest of which was the Pequot War in 1637 which resulted in the Mystic massacre.

[29] By 1686, King James II had become concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, including their self-governing charters, their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and their growing military power.

[citation needed] The Connecticut River Valley became a crucible for industrial innovation, particularly the Springfield Armory, pioneering such advances as interchangeable parts and the assembly line which influenced manufacturing processes all around the world.

[51] From early in the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth, the region surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut served as the United States' epicenter for advanced manufacturing, drawing skilled workers from all over the world.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology invented the format for university-industry relations in high tech fields and spawned many software and hardware firms, some of which grew rapidly.

In 2000, New England had two of the ten poorest cities in the U.S. (by percentage living below the poverty line): the state capitals of Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut.

This is the strongest example of direct democracy in the U.S. today, and the strong democratic tradition was even apparent in the early 19th century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America: New England, where education and liberty are the daughters of morality and religion, where society has acquired age and stability enough to enable it to form principles and hold fixed habits, the common people are accustomed to respect intellectual and moral superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind.

The region has become more ethnically diverse, having seen waves of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Asia, Latin America, Africa, other parts of the U.S., and elsewhere.

[147][148] Other regional beverages include Moxie, one of the first mass-produced soft drinks in the United States, introduced in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1876; it remains popular in New England, particularly in Maine.

[150] Portuguese cuisine is an important element in the annual Feast of the Blessed Sacrament in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the largest ethnic heritage festival in New England.

In popular music, the region has produced Donna Summer, JoJo, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Bel Biv Devoe, Passion Pit, MGMT, Meghan Trainor, New Kids on the Block, Rachel Platten and John Mayer.

A number of Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast members have roots in New England, from Adam Sandler to Amy Poehler, who also starred in the NBC television series Parks and Recreation.

Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, is from Connecticut, with the show taking place in a fictional town called Quahog, Rhode Island.

Carell was also involved in film and the American adaptation of The Office (alongside fellow Massachusetts natives Mindy Kaling, B. J. Novak, and John Krasinski), which features Dunder-Mifflin branches set in Stamford, Connecticut, and Nashua, New Hampshire.

Notable stand-up comedians are also from the region, including Bill Burr, Steve Sweeney, Steven Wright, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, Denis Leary, Lenny Clarke, Patrice O'Neal and Louis CK.

SNL cast member Seth Meyers once attributed the region's imprint on American humor to its "sort of wry New England sense of pointing out anyone who's trying to make a big deal of himself", with The Boston Globe suggesting that irony and sarcasm are its trademarks, as well as Irish influences.

[citation needed] Writers in New England produced many works on religious subjects, particularly on Puritan theology and poetry during colonial times and on Enlightenment ideas during the American Revolution.

Hartford, Connecticut resident Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was an influential book in the spread of abolitionist ideas and is said to have "laid the groundwork for the Civil War".

[165] Other prominent New England novelists include John Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Sarah Orne Jewett, H. P. Lovecraft, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jack Kerouac, George V. Higgins, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Prominent poets include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, David Lindsay-Abaire, Annie Proulx, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Amy Lowell, John Cheever, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, E. E. Cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert P. T. Coffin and Richard Wilbur.

New England has a rich history in filmmaking dating back to the dawn of the motion picture era at the turn of the 20th century, sometimes dubbed Hollywood East by film critics.

A theater at 547 Washington Street in Boston was the second location to debut a picture projected by the Vitascope, and shortly thereafter several novels were being adapted for the screen and set in New England, including The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables.

[167] The New England region continued to churn out films at a pace above the national average for the duration of the 20th century, including blockbuster hits such as Jaws, Good Will Hunting and The Departed, all of which won Academy Awards.

[168] These themes are rooted in centuries of New England culture and are complemented by the region's diverse natural landscape and architecture, from the Atlantic Ocean and brilliant fall foliage to church steeples and skyscrapers.

[169] Notable actors and actresses that have come from the New England area include Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Evans, Ryan O'Neal, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Steve Carell, Ruth Gordon, John Krasinski, Edward Norton, Mark Wahlberg and Matthew Perry.

New England has a strong heritage of athletics, and many internationally popular sports were invented and codified in the region, including basketball, volleyball, and American football.

Other professional baseball teams in the region include the Hartford Yard Goats, New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Vermont Lake Monsters, Portland Sea Dogs, Bridgeport Bluefish, New Britain Bees and the Worcester Red Sox.

Other hockey teams include the Maine Mariners, Providence Bruins, Springfield Thunderbirds, Worcester Railers, Bridgeport Sound Tigers and the Hartford Wolf Pack.

Logan Airport is the busiest transportation hub in the region in terms of number of passengers and total cargo, opened in 1923 and located in East Boston and Winthrop, Massachusetts.