His Majesty King Charles I, namesake of the Charles River in Massachusetts In the early 17th century, Captain John Smith completed a survey of much of the land that would later be called New England.  When Captain Smith returned to England to present his findings to King Charles I, he showed him a map of the new land and suggested to His Majesty that he should feel free to change any of the “barbarous names” on the map to more “civilized” ones.  King Charles did decide to exercise this privilege, and switched out four of the “barbarous names” he found.  One of those names that the king felt had no place in civilization was the name of a river, which was henceforth called the Charles River.  (That river’s long-forgotten “barbarous” name was the ponderously long “Massachusetts River”.  Thank heaven we don’t have to wrap our mouths around a word like that anymore.) The Charles is not very long, as rivers go.  It’s about 80 miles long, and drains roughly...