July 28, 1900 was shaping up to be an average summer day for lunch wagon owner and German immigrant Louis Lassen, who was serving sandwiches and other hot meals to factory workers in New Haven during their lunch breaks. Suddenly, a local businessman, Gary Widmore, rushed up to Lassen’s wagon and desperately asked for…
Tag: connecticut firsts
July 21: Testing the World’s First Military Submarine — in 1776
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 — the world’s first combat submarine. Born in Saybrook in 1740, Bushnell decided at age 30 to sell his share of the family…
June 20: End of the Line for the Naugatuck Valley Trolley
The morning of June 20th, 1937 was the first of a new era of public transportation in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley. After nearly 50 years of uninterrupted trolley service between Ansonia and Derby, the last electric trolley had finished its final run shortly after midnight, replaced by public bus transportation. The electrically-powered trolley line that…
June 11: The Nation’s First Hospice Facility
This day in Connecticut history marks an American medical history milestone: the green-lighting of the first hospice care facility in the United States and the realization of nurse Florence Wald’s lifelong dream of providing comprehensive, compassionate care for patients with terminal illnesses. Having spent significant time in hospitals herself as a child due to…
June 4: Connecticut Passes the Nation’s First “Lemon Law”
On this day in 1982, in response to an increasing number of consumer complaints concerning the purchase of defective new automobiles (colloquially known as “lemons”), the Connecticut legislature passed the nation’s first “Lemon Law.” Introduced by freshman representative John J. Woodcock III of West Hartford, the law was loosely modeled on a set of…