“I acknowledge that my poor judgment brought us here,” said John Rowland to a sea of reporters standing on the back lawn of the Connecticut Governor’s Mansion in Hartford. The date was June 21, 2004, and Rowland was announcing his resignation amid a federal corruption investigation and impeachment inquiry. His Lieutenant Governor, M. Jodi…
June 20: Helen Keller Honored by President Kennedy
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 people who, like herself, were blind and/or deaf. In it, he wrote: “You are one of that select company of men and women whose achievements…
June 19: Connecticut Troops At the Mexican Border
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 Mexico. Earlier that year, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa had led a deadly raid into New Mexico that left an American town destroyed. In response,…
June 18: Crowds Bloom at America’s Oldest Municipal Rose Garden
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 peak example of this annual pilgrimage occurred today in 1933, when nearly 15,000 people in one day — some from as far away…
June 17: The First Black Playwright To “Take a Giant Step” to Broadway
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 achieved a number of firsts, becoming the first Black playwright to have his work produced on Broadway and one of the first Black Emmy nominees – but before…
June 16: The Liberty Bell’s Whirlwind Tour of Connecticut
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 Connecticut cities and towns, giving tens of thousands of Connecticans a chance to see and be seen in its presence, before…
June 15 Connecticut’s First Television Station
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 brainchild of Aldo DeDomenicis, an Italian pasta-wholesaler who had previously found success buying radio time on Italian programs and selling that time as radio ads…
June 14: The Cold War Gets a Game-Changing Submarine
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 at the Electric Boat shipyard on the banks of the Thames River and was hailed in the press as “The Birth of the Atomic Era Navy.” Before a…
June 13: An Old New England Tradition Goes International
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 England to bring emigrated Yankees back for a visit to their “Old Home” town – the city celebrated “Homeland Day,” where Manchester’s foreign-born…
June 12: The “Silver City” Celebrates a Century with Parade after Parade after Parade . . . .
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, which the Hartford Courant described as “of every sort and description” decorated with “flowers in profusion, vines and greens, flags and bunting, plumes and every other…
June 11: UCONN’s 1st Black Basketball Player
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 basketball player for the University of Connecticut (then Connecticut State College) and at the time the only Black student, had already earned the nickname “Honey”…
June 10: The First Union Officer to Die Fighting in the American Civil War
Today in 1861, 32-year-old Major Theodore Woolsey Winthrop, a descendant of one of the most important figures in the founding of Connecticut, died in action at the Battle of Bethel in eastern Virginia, one of the first land battles of the American Civil War. Winthop was the first Union officer to die fighting in…