opens with fifty midshipmen and seven professors. November 1, 1848 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merges with Boston University School of Medicine), opens. November 1849 – Austin College receives a charter in Huntsville, Texas. Other February 4, 1841 – First known reference to Groundhog Day, in the diary of a James Morris. References Robert Sobel Conquest And Conscience: The 1840s (1971) Further reading