Since their marriage in 2011, the new Prince and Princess of Wales have visited the United States three times, the third time being this week. Their first visit to the U.S. took place in Los Angeles shortly after their 2011 wedding, and they visited the U.S. again in 2014, this time in New York City. This time, however, William and Catherine visited Boston to host the second edition of William's Earthshot Awards (the first was held last year in London). Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's "moonshot" (the president's ambitious goal of getting the United States to the moon by the end of the 1960s), William said he created the Earthshot Prize to "discover, celebrate, and scale up the best solutions for fixing our planet." Kensington Palace released a statement that continued, "The Prince and Princess look forward to spending time in Boston and learning more about the issues affecting the local population." [This is the first time William and Catherine have visited Boston, but it is not the first time the royal family has visited the city. Perhaps the best known is the late His Majesty's visit to Boston in 1976 for the bicentennial of the American Revolution.

"I wish to thank the people of Massachusetts, and especially the people of Boston, for the many tributes paid to the late Queen on this, her first overseas visit since my grandmother's death. My grandmother remembered with great fondness our visit in 1976 to commemorate the bicentennial of the Queen's birth. That is why we launched the Earthshot Prize last year with the ambition of creating a truly global platform to inspire hope and urgent optimism for the future of our planet."

He especially thanked the people of Boston, nearly 1,000 of whom braved the rain to meet him and Princess Catherine at the first stop of their three-day visit. He also praised the tough spirit of the Bostonians who "braved the rain" to come see him and Queen Catherine that evening. [If Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and other patriots had known that one day a British monarch would stand under the balcony of the Old State House, where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the people of Boston, and be greeted with generous words from the mayor and others ...... But they probably would have been delighted. If I had known that, in the end, we would come together again as free citizens and friends, and that together we would have defended the very ideals for which the American Revolution was fought.

Prince Charles later visited the city in September 1986 to celebrate Harvard's 350th anniversary, Princess Anne in June 1995, then Prince Edward in September 2000, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in June 2019, although they did not visit Boston met the Boston Red Sox while they were in London.

However, while some Bostonians were excited about William and Catherine's visit, they cheered when the two took the stage at City Hall. At a Boston Celtics basketball game, which William and Catherine watched courtside, "USA. William and Catherine, despite having been up for 22 hours, left the game early because they were having too much fun. (The Welsh couple, when they were the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are clearly fans of the sport; they remember watching a Brooklyn Nets game with Beyoncé and Jay-Z in 2014.)

Temporary traffic jams and road closures frustrated many residents. Boston City Councilman Jefferson Thomas Scott reported on Twitter that William and Catherine arrived on Wednesday. I did not invite these people and was not aware of this visit until you made me aware of it. The city does not handle the itinerary of the Crown Prince and Princess, so the time when these passages and closures will end is unknown."

Since the visit is still ongoing, the overall outcome is still unknown, but according to the Times (opens in new tab), the Boston visit is significant in terms of the royal family's image in the United States. The paper reports, "Considered by royal officials to be one of the most important foreign trips in years, the crown prince and princess' visit to the United States aims to return the House of Windsor firmly to the foreground across the pond."

'Favorable to win the hearts of Bostonians' Celtics beat the Miami Heat yesterday: "It was nice to play basketball last night. "If the Celtics hadn't won last night, we wouldn't have been able to show our faces in Boston anymore. I'm so relieved they won."

On Thursday, several Bostonians gathered for a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Wales were heard shouting, "We love you."