Soon after the then-separate Connecticut and New Haven colonies were established in the 1630s, their country of origin, England, was thrown into a long and brutal civil war pitting English Puritans against King Charles I. The Parliamentarians, as the king’s enemies called themselves, were ultimately victorious, and, after taking control of the government, they…
Tag: march
March 6: Born in Connecticut. Died at the Alamo
On March 6, 1836, 189 men who had pledged allegiance to the newly formed Republic of Texas lost their lives defending a small, fortified mission known as the Alamo near San Antonio, Texas. Following a thirteen-day siege, Mexican troops under General Antonio López de Santa Anna stormed that mission, a critical and savage moment…
March 5: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Connecticut
Today in 1860, sectional tensions over slavery and its expansion into the country’s newly formed states and territories was nearing the breaking point. It was a crucial election year, and members of the nation’s political parties were actively trying to decide who would be their standard bearers in the upcoming presidential campaign. For the…
March 4: 2 Down (11 Letters) – State Where America’s Oldest Crossword Tournament Began
Today in 1978, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the first competition of its kind ever held in the United States, kicked off a weekend of fierce competition at the Marriott Hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. Founded by New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz, the tournament attracted over 100 enthusiasts who battled over a series…
March 3: The Connectican Who Helped America Strut Her Stuff
The United States of America’s first century was marked by incredible growth in nearly every possible way, propelled by the forces of westward expansion, immigration, and the Industrial Revolution. As the 100th anniversary of the nation’s 1776 founding approached, a proposal came before Congress to celebrate America’s emergence as one of the world’s great…
March 2: A Great and Deadly Accident Finds a City Completely Unprepared
Around 2:00pm on March 2, 1854, a deafening blast rocked the Dutch Point neighborhood of Hartford following the explosion of a massive steam boiler at the Fales & Gray Car Works factory. The force of the explosion blew out the eight-inch-thick brick walls encasing the factory’s boiler room, causing the roof to cave in…
March 1: The First President of the United States — Samuel Huntington
On this day in 1781, more than four years after they were first adopted by the Continental Congress, the Articles of Confederation became the supreme law of the United States after being formally ratified by all 13 states. As a result, the previous sitting president of the Continental Congress — a Connecticut lawyer by…
March 31: The First Statewide Aerial Photography Survey in the US
In 1933, Connecticut Governor Wilbur L. Cross, determined to move forward with infrastructure improvements in spite of budget constraints caused by the Great Depression, presented the State Planning Board with a formal request for an aerial photographic survey of the entire state. Governor Cross reasoned that a detailed set of photographs would be an…
March 30: Helicopter Pioneer Igor Sikorsky Arrives in United States
One of Connecticut’s greatest immigrant success stories began today in 1919 when Russian-born Igor Sikorsky first arrived on American shores. While Sikorsky is best known as the inventor of the world’s first practical helicopter and the founder of the Sikorsky Aircraft manufacturing company headquartered in Stratford, he first made a name for himself as a…
March 28: The Oyster Industry Comes Out Of Its Shell.
By the time the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries first assigned a resident scientist to study Connecticut’s shellfish industry in the 1920s, Connecticut residents had been harvesting oysters and clams from the waters of Long Island Sound for hundreds of years. Created in the late 19th century, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries’ mission was…
March 27: Dam Bursts in Staffordville Cause Cascading Chaos
During the second half of the 19th century, as more and more mills and factories popped up along the banks of the Willimantic River’s northern branch in eastern Connecticut, a number of factory owners banded together to form the Stafford (or Staffordville) Reservoir Company with the aim of regulating the flow of water that…
March 26: The First State to Make the Minimum Wage Over $10 an Hour
On March 26, 2014, Connecticut became the first state in the country to pass legislation setting its minimum wage above $10 an hour. The new law mandated slight increases, rolled out over three years, that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by the start of 2017, increasing the paychecks of…