August 13: A Trusted Patriot Defects to the Redcoats

  During the eight long years of the Revolutionary War, both British and American commanders employed creative and dangerous tactics in the attempt to gather military intelligence that could give their armies a battlefield advantage. One common but highly risky method of obtaining such intelligence was to have a soldier pretend to “defect” to the…

July 21: Testing the World’s First Attack 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…

July 7: The Revolutionary War Burning and Looting of Fairfield

  Throughout the Revolutionary War, Connecticut citizens lived in fear of devastating British raids on shoreline communities. From the British perspective, Connecticut was a nest of rebel activity, both overt and covert. Not only was it home to a government that had early and ardently supported the Patriot cause, its shoreline towns openly gave shelter…

July 2: Connecticut Refuses to Fight for the United States

  It would be a gross understatement to say that the War of 1812 was unpopular in Connecticut. As a region, New England was fiercely opposed to the War of 1812, which the Yankees collectively viewed as a frivolous and economically disastrous war waged by President James Madison against the British Empire. But Connecticut took…

June 30: The Highest Honor a Civilian Can Receive

  On June 30, 1947, President Harry Truman awarded Dean Acheson the Medal for Merit, a special honor given to civilians for “exceptionally meritorious conduct” in service of the Allied powers during World War II. The Medal for Merit was awarded for a period of 10 years, from 1942 – 1952. It was the highest…

June 19: Connecticut Troops At the Mexican Border

  In June 1916, while the horrors of the Great War in Europe remained an ocean away, President Woodrow Wilson confronted a more immediate threat along the United States’ border with Mexico. Earlier that year, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa had led a deadly raid into New Mexico that left an American town destroyed. In response,…

June 14: The Cold War Gets a Game-Changing Submarine

  Today in 1952, President Harry S. Truman journeyed to Groton, Connecticut to dedicate the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus. The keel-laying ceremony took place at the Electric Boat shipyard on the banks of the Thames River and was hailed in the press as “The Birth of the Atomic Era Navy.” Before a…

June 6: Seconds Before Jumping, A D-Day Message From Mom

  In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, Private Robert C. Hillman became one of over 13,000 American paratroopers to leap out of a plane over Normandy as part of the “D-Day” invasion of occupied France — one of the largest offensives of World War II. A member of the legendary 101st Airborne…

May 29: Connecticut’s Daring Leader in Two Wars, and Peacetime Hero.

  Today in Connecticut history, Revolutionary War general and French & Indian War veteran Israel Putnam passed away on his farmstead in Brooklyn, Connecticut. Best known for his participation in the Revolutionary War’s crucial Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, Putnam’s reputation for bravery and daring was earned long before hostilities broke out between the…

May 22: The Plan That Won The American Revolution

  Today in 1781 marked the beginning of the end of the Revolutionary War. General George Washington of the Continental Army and Comte de Rochambeau of the French Army met at the elegant home of a Wethersfield merchant to plan the military campaign that would produce the decisive and ultimately war-winning victory at Yorktown, Virginia…