On October 1, 2005, Connecticut became the third state in the union to legally recognize same-sex civil unions. Four years earlier, Vermont became the first state to do so after the Vermont Supreme Court mandated that denying same-sex couples the benefits of marriage violated their state constitution. In 2004, Massachusetts’s Supreme judicial court similarly…
Tag: october
October 31: Trick or Treat? The Legend of the Charter Oak
One of the most important symbols in Connecticut history is the Charter Oak – the giant, gnarled oak tree that represents Connecticut’s “steady habit” of self-rule and resistance against tyranny. Depictions and namesakes of the Charter Oak are plentiful throughout the state: schools, streets, social organizations, parks, Connecticut’s state quarter, and even a brewery…
October 30: Yung Wing –– Immigrant, Path-Breaking Student, Missionary, Educator, Outcast & Refugee
Born in 1828 to a poor farming family in Macau, Yung Wing was sent to attend foreign missionary schools in southern China at a young age. His parents hoped that learning English would lead young Wing to a more prosperous career path. In 1847, when Yung was 19 years old, he accompanied his former…
October 29: The Nation’s “Oldest” Newspaper’s First Issue
In October of 1764, 29-year-old Thomas Green, a fourth-generation printer, suddenly found himself out of a job working at the Connecticut Gazette print shop in New Haven. The Gazette, Connecticut’s very first newspaper, had been established several years earlier by the enterprising Benjamin Franklin, who had just sacked Green in order to install his…
October 28: The Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association Formed
On this day in 1869, at a meeting in Hartford attended by civil rights luminaries including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and William Lloyd Garrison, Isabella Beecher Hooker and her husband John formally established the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. Isabella was born into the famous Beecher clan of Litchfield in 1822. She and…
October 27: The Doughboys of the Yankee Division Honor One of Their Own
Born in 1898 to Irish immigrants living in New Haven, Timothy Francis Ahearn was still a teenager when he enlisted in the 102d Infantry Division — famously known as the Yankee Division owing to the New England origins of most of its men — and was deployed overseas to fight the Germans during World…
October 26: Emil A. Trefzger’s Magic Fingers Win International Acclaim for Underwood
The first few decades of the 20th century were heady years for the American typewriter industry. The invention of portable typing machines in the late 1800s revolutionized the business world by making clerical work faster, cheaper, and easier. Connecticut was home to several of the world’s most popular and innovative typewriter companies during that…
October 25: The Final, Fatal Voyage of the Bounty
The HMS Bounty is undoubtedly one of the most famous and storied sailing vessels in history, capturing the world’s imagination ever since the original British ship was the site of a famous mutiny against Captain William Bligh in 1789 in the South Pacific. Even though the original HMS Bounty was destroyed in 1790, a…
October 24: Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson Dies in Stamford
Today in 1972, baseball legend Jackie Robinson passed away at his longtime home in Stamford, Connecticut. Today, Robinson is a household name, best known as the first African-American to play Major League Baseball and as one of the greatest all-around players of the game in American history. In 1947, when he was drafted by…
October 22:A Poor Yankee Peddler from Harwinton Becomes a Railroad Tycoon
Collis Potter Huntington was born today in 1822, the sixth of nine children born to William and Elizabeth Huntington of Harwinton, Connecticut. The Huntington family, owners of a farm in a section of Harwinton fittingly known as “Poverty Hollow,” constantly struggled to make ends meet, forcing Collis to set off on his own as…
October 21: When Columbus Stood For Inclusion & Columbus Day Came 9 Days Late
At a time when immigrants – many from Italy – were pouring into America in numbers that seriously alarmed the “old stock” descendants of the original Puritan settlers, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s even-then-disputed “discovery” of America proved an ideal time for Connecticans to assess the contributions of newcomers while expressing a common patriotism….
October 20: A Monument to the State’s Founding Minister
On October 20, 1950, a crowd of several hundred Connecticans gathered in front of the Old State House in Hartford to observe the unveiling of a new, eight-foot-tall statue of Thomas Hooker, the Puritan minister and “founding father” of Connecticut who founded the settlement of Hartford in 1636. Born in England in 1586, Thomas…