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New Hampshire has 221 towns. Town government is divided into two parts: the town and the school. Town government is led by an elected select board or town council. The select board oversees the town departments, such as the police, fire, and parks and recreation. The school side of town government is overseen by the school board. School board members are also elected by the people in the town. The school board works with the superintendent of the school district to make decisions about how the town’s schools should be run.

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There are 13 cities in New Hampshire.

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Ralph Baer is known as the “father of the video game.” He was born in Germany but moved with his family to the United States in 1938. The Baers were Jewish and emigrated to escape the Nazis, the group that controlled Germany at that time. The Nazis persecuted Jewish people and took away all of their rights. In America, Baer studied television engineering, which was a new field at the time. He served in World War II and later moved to Manchester and began working at an electronics company. In 1966 he had the idea to add games to television sets. He invented a game system that he called the “Brown Box.” It was the first multiplayer video game system. The “Brown Box” was later sold as the Magnavox Odyssey. It looked very basic compared to the games you play, but it launched the whole gaming craze that is still going on today. There is a statue of Ralph Baer in Manchester.

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Dean Kamen is an inventor, engineer, and businessman from New Hampshire. He is best known for inventing the Segway, but he has invented a lot of other things too, especially in the medical field. In the 1980s Kamen bought up some of the empty buildings in the Manchester Millyard and used them for laboratory and office space for his company, DEKA. This brought other companies into the Millyard and helped improve the neighborhood. Kamen launched the Segway, a personal transportation device, in 2001. He also invented an all-terrain electric wheelchair called the iBOT, a portable system to purify water, a machine to help people with kidney problems, and a special type of prosthetic, or artificial, arm. Kamen is also one of the founders of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, which is in schools all over the country. Have you ever participated in a FIRST Lego League Challenge or Robotics Competition?

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Jeanne Shaheen is the first woman elected governor of New Hampshire, the first woman elected U.S. Senator from New Hampshire, and the first woman in American history to be elected both a governor and a U.S. Senator. She was born in Missouri but moved to New Hampshire in 1973. She ran a small business and taught at Dover High School. Shaheen became active in politics, especially the New Hampshire primary. In 1990 she was elected to the New Hampshire Senate, and in 1996 she was elected governor. After serving three terms as governor, Shaheen ran for U.S. Senate in 2002, but she lost that election. She tried again in 2008, and that time she won. She was reelected to the Senate in 2014 and 2020.