For a small state sandwiched between two of America’s largest cities, Connecticut has enjoyed its fair share of exposure to professional sports. While Connecticut is best known for its association with professional hockey and baseball teams and for the many Olympic athletes who grew up in its suburbs, the state has also played host…
Tag: august
August 5: Liberty Stands On a Connecticut Foundation
While scores of Connecticut men and women have left an indelible mark on American history, sometimes it’s easy to forget that objects from Connecticut can have their own stories of national significance, too. In fact, some of the most monumental objects in Connecticut history can be traced to a single point of origin: a…
August 4: Connecticut Broadcasting’s “Ban the Beatles” Boycott
“She loves you, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!” . . . . Well, maybe not. On August 4, 1966, several Connecticut pop music radio stations joined a nationwide boycott and refused to play Beatles music in response to perceived anti-Christian remarks made by John Lennon. The offending interview actually took place the preceding March, when journalist…
August 3: Delegates To a Congress of Future Revolutionaries.
Today, Americans are so familiar with the imagery and legends surrounding the Declaration of Independence that they often forget just how radical that event was. The very notion that representatives from all 13 American colonies would meet in secret in an extralegal “Continental Congress” to discuss coordinated resistance to British rule was an incredibly…
August 2: Connecticut’s Last Public Hanging
In 2012, Connecticut became the 17th state to outlaw the death penalty. For the first 200 years of Connecticut’s history as colony and state,however, public executions with large crowds attending were viewed as an effective deterrent of serious crimes. They were major community events, attracting hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of onlookers to watch the…
August 1: Hartford’s Home Team Gets A Major League Trophy
The Charter Oak Base Ball Club, founded in the summer of 1862, was one of the the first baseball teams to be formed in Hartford. Their stated mission was to “establish on a scientific basis the health-giving and scientific game of Base Ball, and to promote good fellowship among its players.” In the age…
August 29: Wind Power to People the Prairies
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 adapt to new climates and topographies that were unlike anything they had ever seen before. Since the Great Plains generally lacked the forests…
August 24: U. S. Navy Intercepts “The Long, Low Black Schooner” Amistad
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…
August 23: Sight-Damaged, Globe-Circling Aviator Wiley Post Lands in Connecticut
Today in 1933, famed aviator Wiley Post flew into Hartford’s Brainard Field, weeks after completing a record-breaking solo flight around the world. In the 1930s, Wiley Post was a household name second only to Charles Lindbergh among famous American aviators. Post, a native of north Texas, had embarked on a series of odd jobs…
August 10: An Orphaned Girl’s Bumpy Journey to Fame Begins in East Haddam
The story of an orphaned girl’s unshakable faith in the parents who left her as a ward of the state as a very young child would not on first glance seem to be the stuff of which world-renowned and unforgettable broadway musicals are made. Yet, today in 1976, an unlikely play with that plot…
August 31: New Haven Native Wins US Golf Championship – for the 6th Time
On August 31, 1935, thousands watched New Haven-born golf sensation Glenna Collett Vare win a record-breaking 6th U.S. Women’s Golf Championship at the Interlachen Country Club in Hopkins, Minnesota. Born in New Haven in 1903, Glenda Collett Vare was an active youngster, excelling at a variety of sports including swimming, diving, and golf. She…
August 30: The 92 Million Dollar Kickoff
Today in 2003, the UConn Huskies football team kicked off a new era in Connecticut college sports as they played their first game in the brand-new, 92 million, 40,000-seat stadium at Rentschler Field in East Hartford. The stadium was the result of a decade-long search for a suitable new home for the university’s expanding…