August 2025 – Today in Connecticut History
12 posts published by kathyfoley21 during August 2025| Today in Connecticut History
12 posts published by kathyfoley21 during August 2025| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1818, delegates to the state’s first ever Constitutional Convention gathered at the State House in Hartford for the first time, charged with the formidable task of restructuring Connecticut state government by creating the state’s first formally written constitution. Writing a new constitution was no small task, given the social, cultural, and political... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
In the late evening hours of August 25, 1953, a motorcade carrying Corporal John H. F. Teal pulled into Hartford’s North End, where a small crowd of family and friends were eagerly gathered to welcome him home. Teal had just been returned to the United States after spending 32 months in a Korean prison... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
In early 1839, Portuguese slave traders captured dozens of native Mende Africans from the territory of modern-day Sierra Leone — technically, in violation of several international treaties — and sold them to two Spaniards in the slave markets of Havana, Cuba. On July 1, while en route to nearby plantations aboard the Spaniards’ schooner... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1933, the man whose fame as a fearless American aviation pioneer was second only to that of Charles Lindbergh, flew into Hartford’s Brainard Field just weeks after completing a record-breaking solo flight around the world. His career was more remarkable because of the accident that gave rise to it. As a young... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
Theodore Roosevelt was no stranger to Connecticut; his mother and second wife were Connecticans and his sister lived in Farmington for most of her adult life. While Roosevelt’s several visits to Connecticut to visit his family and friends often attracted plenty of press, his visit of August 22, 1902 was memorable not for why... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
In the early morning hours of August 21, 1856, the Charter Oak — the ancient living symbol of Connecticut’s most cherished values and icon of its core identity — crashed to a ground-shaking death amid the fierce winds and blinding rain of an overnight summer storm. The giant white oak had stood atop a... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
During the Age of Sail, all people who traveled by water did so at the mercy of wind and tide. Too little wind, or wind from the wrong direction, brought delay or disruption to the best-laid plans. Too much wind brought danger, and sometimes even death and destruction. No trip was predictable. When it... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1955, torrential rains from Hurricane Diane — the second hurricane to hit Connecticut in five days — wreaked flood-borne death and devastation across the state. After Hurricane Connie dumped six inches of water on Connecticut earlier in the week, the 14 – 20 additional inches of rain from Diane proved too much... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
It would be easy to hold up Connecticut inventor Christopher Miner Spencer as an archetype of 19th century Yankee ingenuity: Not only was he a man who spent his whole life tinkering with machinery, filing patents, and aggressively marketing his creations, but as with so many other Connecticut inventors, his innovations changed the course... Read More| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1917, 28-year-old Connecticut activist and women’s suffrage advocate Catherine Flanagan was arrested for picketing in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. Flanagan and…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1900, one of the first electrically powered trolley lines in the United States began service on the three-mile run between Branford and East Haven. It was a relatively short trip th…| Today in Connecticut History
12 posts published by kathyfoley21 during May 2025| Today in Connecticut History
12 posts published by kathyfoley21 during July 2025| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1879, Abigail “Abby” Hadassah Smith, — who achieved instant national fame at age 76 because of the way she responded to the man who took her cows — passed away at her …| Today in Connecticut History
Samson Occom, one of the Mohegan tribe’s most famous members and a direct descendant of the great 17th-century tribal leader Uncas, was born in 1723 in southeastern Connecticut. As a t…| Today in Connecticut History
While Connecticut has been home to an outsized share of American innovators and creative geniuses, few of them have had as long-lasting an impact as David Bushnell, inventor of the Turtle &#…| Today in Connecticut History
Sun Myung Moon, the late 20th century Korean evangelist whose Unification Church once claimed over three million members worldwide, was a figure dogged by controversy throughout his life. Bo…| Today in Connecticut History
J. Alden Weir loved his Ridgefield, Connecticut farm so much, he called it “the Great Good Place.” Today, as one of Connecticut’s two National Historic parks (Coltsville in Hartford is the o…| Today in Connecticut History
Hammonasset Beach State Park, Connecticut’s largest public beach and one of the state’s most popular attractions, first opened to the public today in 1920. Located in Madison, Ha…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1913, arrest warrants were issued in Bridgeport for players on the Bridgeport Mechanics minor league baseball team. It was not the first time members of the Bridgeport nine had face…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1787, the vision of a new federal government for the fledgling United States of America was saved from the scrap heap of history as the delegates to the Constitutional Convention na…| Today in Connecticut History
With an area of 8.4 square miles and over 60 miles of coastline, Candlewood Lake is the largest lake in the state of Connecticut. Located in five towns and straddling both Litchfield and Fai…| Today in Connecticut History
Whenever a train approached Bridgeport’s “Jenkins Curve,” the sharpest curve of the New Haven Railroad system, safety regulations required the engineer to slow down to 30 m…| Today in Connecticut History
12 posts published by kathyfoley21 and waltwould during April 2025| Today in Connecticut History
Early in the morning of June 28th, 1983, at around 1:30 am, a 100-foot span of Interstate 95 in Greenwich collapsed into the Mianus River. It was one of the most infamous American bridge dis…| Today in Connecticut History
12 posts published by kathyfoley21 during June 2025| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1961, Easton resident Helen Keller received a birthday greeting from President John F. Kennedy containing high praise for her lifetime’s worth of hard work and advocacy for pe…| Today in Connecticut History
In June 1916, while the horrors of the Great War in Europe remained an ocean away, President Woodrow Wilson confronted a more immediate threat along the United States’ border with Mexi…| Today in Connecticut History
For over a hundred years, crowds of visitors have flocked to Connecticut’s Elizabeth Park in June to see the thousands of roses in bloom in the park’s historic Rose Garden. One p…| Today in Connecticut History
Award-winning playwright and filmmaker Louis Peterson spent his career creating dramatic stories that explored conflict and relationships especially as they turned around issues of race. He …| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1903, just after 6:00 p.m., one of the most iconic symbols of American freedom — the Liberty Bell — arrived in Connecticut. Over the next 24 hours, it would visit five C…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1948, Connecticut’s first television station WNHC-TV, Channel 6 (now WTNH Channel 8) began broadcasting in New Haven. The introduction of this new media to Connecticut was the brain…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1952, President Harry S. Truman journeyed to Groton, Connecticut to dedicate the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus. The keel-laying ceremony took place…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1914, the people of Manchester turned a time-honored New England tradition on its head. Rather than celebrating Old Home Days – an annual event held in communities across New Englan…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1906, three parades commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of Meriden took place throughout the city. The day’s main parade — comprised of 162 automobiles, …| Today in Connecticut History
Harrison “Honey” Fitch, arrived on the University of Connecticut (then Connecticut State College) in the fall of 1932 and he made a solid impression, fast. Fitch, the first Black…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1781 marked the beginning of the end of the Revolutionary War. General George Washington of the Continental Army and Comte de Rochambeau of the French Army met at the elegant home o…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1826, iconic American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church was born in Hartford. The internationally famed artist’s Connecticut roots ran deep: he was a direct descendant o…| Today in Connecticut History
Oliver Ellsworth, who played a critical role in drafting both the U.S. Constitution and designing the federal court system and U.S. Supreme Court, was born today in 1745 in Windsor. A gradua…| Today in Connecticut History
During the American Revolution, the western Connecticut town of Danbury served as a critical supply depot for Continental Army troops stationed in New England and the strategically important…| Today in Connecticut History
In the 1630s, John Davenport, like many Puritan ministers preaching in cosmopolitan and decadent London, yearned to create a “New Jerusalem.” This “heavenly city” wou…| Today in Connecticut History
For the English colonists who settled along the banks of the Connecticut River in the 1630s, life in the “New World” was anything but easy. In addition to the challenges to food…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1817, Noah Webster’s visionary essay on environmental sustainability, which he modestly titled “Domestic Consumption,” was published on the front page of the Conne…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1910, Mark Twain, one of America’s most famous authors and Connecticut’s most famous residents, died at his home in Redding. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he grew up in…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1939, Connecticut became the last state in the the union to ratify the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights — 150 years after the list of amendments was first proposed. Why …| Today in Connecticut History
As the first political cartoonist ever to win a Pulitzer Prize, Clarence Daniel “C. D.” Batchelor thought having been born on April Fool’s Day (in 1888) was appropriate to his calling. The…| Today in Connecticut History
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO HEAR AN AI WRITTEN AND AI NARRATED VERSION OF TODAY’S STORY. This is an experiment in seeing how artificial intelligence can be applied to public history. Th…| Today in Connecticut History
The largely unknown man at the center of Connecticut’s 19th century industrial greatness – Elisha King Root – died in Hartford today in 1865. Root’s machine tool genius first rev…| Today in Connecticut History
During the first half of the 19th century, as thousands of Americans journeyed westward in search of new fortunes, necessity became the mother of invention as would-be farmers were forced to…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1942, following top-secret research on the effects of the war-poison mustard gas, physicians at Yale University made medical history as they administered the first use of intraven…| Today in Connecticut History
In the late evening hours of August 25, 1953, a motorcade carrying Corporal John H. F. Teal pulled into Hartford’s North End, where a small crowd of family and friends were eagerly gat…| Today in Connecticut History
In early 1839, Portuguese slave traders captured dozens of native Mende Africans from the territory of modern-day Sierra Leone — technically, in violation of several international trea…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in 1933, the man whose fame as a fearless American aviation pioneer was second only to that of Charles Lindbergh, flew into Hartford’s Brainard Field just weeks after completin…| Today in Connecticut History
Theodore Roosevelt was no stranger to Connecticut; his mother and second wife were Connecticans and his sister lived in Farmington for most of her adult life. While Roosevelt’s several…| Today in Connecticut History
In the early morning hours of August 21, 1856, the Charter Oak — the ancient living symbol of Connecticut’s most cherished values and icon of its core identity — crashed to…| Today in Connecticut History
During the Age of Sail, all people who traveled by water did so at the mercy of wind and tide. Too little wind, or wind from the wrong direction, brought delay or disruption to the best-laid…| Today in Connecticut History
Today in Connecticut history, actress Deborah Walley was born in Bridgeport in 1941. With nationally famous ice skaters and choreographers Edith and Nathan Walley as her parents, young Debor…| Today in Connecticut History
