Today, when it comes to annual autumn fair traditions, Connecticans have plenty of options to choose from, with dozens of local fairs held within the state and “The Big E” Eastern States Exposition located just over the Massachusetts border in West Springfield. For over 110 years, however, the Danbury Fair was the biggest agricultural…
Tag: danbury
July 20: Leader of the “Moonies” Reports to Danbury Prison.
Sun Myung Moon, the late 20th century Korean evangelist whose Unification Church once claimed over 3 million members worldwide, was a figure dogged by controversy throughout his entire life. Born in occupied North Korea in 1920, Moon developed strong anti-Communist views as an adult and founded the Unification Church in Seoul, South Korea, so…
July 15: Creating Connecticut’s Largest Lake
With an area of 8.4 square miles and over 60 miles of coastline, Candlewood Lake is the largest lake in the state of Connecticut. Located in five towns and straddling both Litchfield and Fairfield counties, its shores are also home to some of the state’s highest-priced real estate. It has served as a recreational…
May 15: “Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley Checks Into Danbury Prison
Leona Helmsley was one of the most infamous celebrity billionaires of late 20th century New York, a hotel and real estate magnate who gained national notoriety for her reportedly tyrannical treatment of her staff. The wife of hotelier Harry Helmsley, Leona became the face of a marketing campaign that cast her as a “queen”…
April 27: Payback Time – The Battle of Ridgefield
On this day in 1777, one day after William Tryon destroyed the Continental Army’s supply depot in Danbury with a party of 2,000 British troops and loyalists, a force of American troops and Connecticut militiamen struck back near the town of Ridgefield. Tryon’s raid on Danbury took local patriots by surprise; they had assumed…
April 26: British Troops Attack Danbury, Connecticut
During the American Revolution, the western Connecticut town of Danbury served as a critical supply depot for Continental Army troops stationed in the New England and mid-Atlantic states, including the strategically-important Hudson River Valley area. In early 1777, Royal Governor William Tryon of New York attempted to sever the American supply line that ran…
April 16: Planting The Seeds of Connecticut’s Grange Movement
As the United States grew exponentially in size and population over the course of the 19th century, formal social groups and fraternal societies of all kinds sprang up across the country with missions that encompassed lofty themes of patriotism, industry, fellowship, and civic service. The National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry was one such…
January 31: Danbury’s Kohanza Dam Bursts
In 1860, residents living in Danbury, Connecticut banded together to build a large, earthen dam to create a reservoir that would provide a steady water supply for the town’s steadily-increasing population and burgeoning factories. A few years later, they built a second dam about a mile downriver, and the structures became known as the…
December 18: Connecticut’s 20th Century “Demonic Possession” Murder Trial
Today in 1981, the sentencing of Arne Cheyenne Johnson in a Danbury courtroom marked the end of one of the most bizarre court cases in Connecticut history. For the first and only time in U.S. history, a defendant on trial for murder argued that he could not be held responsible for his actions because…
December 16: First Connecticut Stretch of Interstate 84 Opens
By the 1950s, overcrowded highways became an increasingly familiar annoyance to Connecticut commuters as the state basked in post-WWII economic prosperity and the increase in population — and automobile traffic — that came with it. At the time, most of Connecticut’s inland east-west travel utilized U.S. Route 6, an old and overburdened road that…
October 7: Danbury Baptists Inspire Jefferson’s “Separation of Church and State” Doctrine
One of the central tenets of modern American political doctrine was borne out of a humble letter exchange that began on this day in Connecticut history. On October 7, 1801, the Danbury Baptists Association of Danbury, Connecticut sent an eloquent letter to newly-elected President Thomas Jefferson expressing their concerns about Connecticut’s continued state sponsorship…
October 4: The Last Run of the State’s Greatest Fair
Today, when it comes to annual autumn fair traditions, Connecticans have plenty of options to choose from, with dozens of local fairs held within the state and “The Big E” Eastern States Exposition located just over the Massachusetts border in West Springfield. For over 110 years, however, the Danbury Fair was the biggest agricultural…