Banker Henry Lee Higginson's unprecedented one-million-dollar grant established the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since its debut on this day in 1881, the BSO has established itself as one of the great orchestras of the world.

In order to give orchestra members summer employment, and to recapture the ambience of the Bilse Orchestra's beer-hall concerts in Berlin where Higginson had been a music student, Higginson established a second BSO season in the spring, played by a reduced orchestra. The "Pops," as it became known remains, essentially, the Boston Symphony Orchestra minus its first chair players.