The Tuskegee Airmen are celebrated today both as war heroes and as the first Black aviators in American military service. With American involvement in World War II looming, 13 men entered training at Tuskegee air field in Alabama, and five survived the rigorous training program to earn their silver wings on March 7, 1942….
Author: waltwould
I am the State Historian of Connecticut and an Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. Check my links to 1) See What Happened Today in Connecticut History; 2) Listen to our latest Connecticut History podcast
February 7: Amelia Earhart Lands at the Altar, but Not without a Pre-Nup.
It may or may not not have been a marriage made in heaven, but aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart’s wedding to publishing magnate George P. Putnam was not entered into through flighty considerations. Putnam succeeded in landing the famed aviator as a bride only after his sixth proposal, and when they did tie the knot…
February 1: The Man Who Made the First Map of the United States.
Abel Buell was a man able to do just about anything, just not very well. At various times a convicted counterfeiter, goldsmith, engraver, armsmaker, inventor, textile manufacturer, packet boat proprietor, auctioneer, privateer, mint master, mapmaker, and husband to four wives, Buel spent most of his 81 years pursuing a seemingly limitless array of schemes…
January 30: She Cooked Up the Recipe for Success, and Set the Table for Those Who Followed
Before the fictional Betty Crocker and the very real Julia Child, Gordon Ramsay, Paula Dean, Bobby Flay, and Rachel Ray, there was Ida Bailey Allen. Born today in 1885 in Danielson, Allen used training in domestic science, a tireless entrepreneurial spirit and a faultless instinct for the potential of mass-market communications to create the…
January 24: Total Eclipse Brings State to a Standstill
In the chilly winter of 1925, Connecticut found itself in the rare and remarkable position of being the nation’s prime viewing spot for a total eclipse of the sun. All along the path of totality, which in the United States swept from Niagara Falls to Montauk Point, millions suspended their regular activities to experience…
January 12: Yale Body Snatching Triggers Week of Rioting in New Haven
Early Monday morning, January 12, 1824, Dr. Jonathan Knight, the first Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the not-yet-fifteen-year-old Yale School of Medicine, was visited at his home by two men: a prominent local attorney and the village constable of West Haven. They had come on official business, armed with a search warrant, to…
January 8: Eli Whitney’s Best Idea Comes Home
Eli Whitney, who died today in 1825, is best known for his invention of the cotton gin. But Whitney also left a lasting legacy on American manufacturing and society through his creation of the first “manufacturing community” in America, the factory village in southeast Hamden still known as Whitneyville. Whitney’s manufactory was designed not…
January 1: March 25th Is No Longer New Year’s Day
Today in 1752, Connecticans woke up to the realization that January first was, and henceforward always would be, New Year’s Day. The year before, and for 597 years before that, both in Old and New England, New Year’s Day had fallen on March 25th. Facing a year that began in mid-winter wasn’t the only calendar…
December 25: On Christmas Morning, Mark Twain Is Troubled By a Pandemic
December 25th, 1871 found Samuel Clemens – better known as Mark Twain – far from home, lonely for his wife and son, ruminating on Christmas, and deeply worried about a pandemic. The 36-year-old author and humorist was in Chicago, in the middle of a grueling four-and-a half-month, 76-performance lecture tour that would prove one…
November 20: A Fire, A Fiery Lady & A Hungry Lion
On November 20, 1887, fire raged through the winter quarters of Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. The five-acre compound in what is now Bridgeport’s Went Field Park housed circus animals, staff and equipment during the chilly off-season. Unfortunately, if there was anything to be said about the nineteenth-century circus, it’s that…
November 10: Unusual Funeral Ends Connecticut’s Tong Wars
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, as Chinese immigrants flocked to American shores in increasing numbers, insular Chinese-American communities known as “Chinatowns” sprang up in large coastal cities like San Francisco and New York. Here, recent immigrants could more freely speak their native language and observe Chinese customs while adapting to…
July 23: Abby Smith and Her Cows Go Viral –– in 1874
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 home in Glastonbury. Born into a prominent activist Glastonbury family, Smith and her four sisters were educated from birth to…