Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Massachusetts legislature signed a charter on the 4th of May 1780 to create the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This legal act established the organization as a new learned society during the height of the American Revolution.
John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, and Andrew Oliver stood among the sixty-two founding members who gathered in Cambridge. These men sought to cultivate every art and science for a free people when the Academy was founded.
The Boston Globe exposed then president Leslie Berlowitz in July 2013 for falsifying her credentials and faking a doctorate. She consistently mistreated staff members before resigning following the public revelation of these actions after leading the organization for three years.
Academy members include more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners among their ranks. The current membership encompasses over 5,700 members based across the United States and around the world today.
Astronomer Maria Mitchell became the first woman elected to the Academy in 1848 breaking barriers for future generations. More than 10,000 fellows have been elected throughout the Academy's history spanning from 1780 to the present day.