September 13: The Highest-Ranking Union Officer Killed in the Civil War

  One of Connecticut’s most important Civil War figures, Major General John Sedgwick, was born in Cornwall today in 1813. After attending prestigious academies in Sharon and Cheshire, Sedgwick attended West Point and graduated in the Class of 1837 with several other future generals who served on both sides of the Civil War. These included…

September 12: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Teenage Summer in Simsbury

  Years before he became an internationally famous orator and civil rights leader, young Martin Luther King, Jr. worked a number of jobs to make ends meet for his family. During the summer of 1944, after he gained early admission to Morehouse College at the age of 15, he journeyed north from Georgia to the…

September 11: Twenty-Two Years. So Many Connecticans. Still Like Yesterday.

  Today in Connecticut history, we remember all the victims, and especially those from Connecticut.  On September 11, 2001, the course of United States history was forever altered as terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing two into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the fourth into…

September 9: A Pair of Shoemakers Try On the Governor’s Office

  When shoe-manufacturer Phineas Chapman Lounsbury of Ridgefield, Connecticut won the Republican party nomination for governor on September 9, 1886, it marked the beginning of a short-lived but unique political dynasty. Phineas would go on to win the governor’s race later that year and serve a single term as Connecticut’s 53rd governor before retiring from…

September 8: “Old Nan” Comes to the End of the Line

  When  Amtrak’s Northeast Regional train 67  crossed the Niantic River  on its nighttime  run from Boston to New York at 11:39 p.m. on September 7, 2012, it was the last train ever to travel on “Old Nan,” the 105 year old railroad drawbridge  between East Lyme and Waterford,  a historic “choke point” on the nation’s busiest rail line.  At…

September 7: A Game-Changer For Sports . . . and Television

  Today in 1979, at 7:00pm Eastern time, the first cable channel devoted exclusively to sports and entertainment went live from its studio in Bristol, Connecticut. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) was the dream of Bill Rasmussen, a former communications director for the New England (later Hartford) Whalers, who spent the better part…

September 5: Stars in Cars Bagged on the Merritt Parkway

  Every day, tens of thousands of commuters from Connecticut and neighboring states use the Merritt Parkway as an alternative to the often-congested Interstate 95 highway in an attempt get to their destinations faster — and every day, a number of them are ticketed for going a little too fast. Connecticut passed America’s very first…

September 4: A Fallen Marine, A World War, & A New Destroyer

  Born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1920, Everett Frederick Larson was one of thousands of young Connecticans who answered their country’s call to service during World War II. In January 1942, Larson enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and, several months later, participated in the Guadalcanal Campaign, a major offensive by the Allied…