Short answers, pulled from the story.
New England consists of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is the only multi-state region the U.S. Census Bureau recognizes with clear and consistent boundaries.
Boston, Massachusetts is the largest city in New England and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston, comprising the Boston-Worcester-Providence Combined Statistical Area, houses more than half of the region's total population.
The English explorer John Smith named the region New England in 1616. The name became official on the 3rd of November 1620, when a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England replaced the earlier Virginia Company arrangement.
The Blackstone Valley, running through Massachusetts and Rhode Island, has been called the birthplace of America's industrial revolution. The first cotton mill in America opened in 1787 as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory in Beverly, Massachusetts.
Basketball was developed by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891, and volleyball was invented by William G. Morgan in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1895. American football was developed by Walter Camp in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1870s and 1880s.
As of 2021, five of the six New England states had voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, and in 2020 Joe Biden won 61.2% of the region's total vote. The region was staunchly Republican before the mid-twentieth century, shifting after Catholics mobilized behind the Democrats, especially in 1928.