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News & Updates
Nathaniel Palmer discovers Antarctica – Today in History: November 18
On November 18, 1820, Nathaniel Brown Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut, discovered the mainland of Antarctica, one of the seven continents.
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New London Harbors a German Submarine During World War I – Who Knew?
The German merchant submarine Deutschland made two trips to America, including one to New London, Connecticut, during World War I.
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The Connecticut Poll Tax
The Connecticut poll tax lasted for almost 300 years and encompassed four different variants.
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Jack Brutus, Connecticut War Dog – Who Knew?
Jack Brutus’s military status was unofficial, but he became the official mascot of Company K of the First Connecticut Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War.
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Scandal in the Beecher Family
An alleged affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Henry Ward Beecher became public in 1872 and inspired a series of lawsuits for libel.
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Connecticut Residents Did Not Let Veterans Day “Go Commercial.”
Despite passage of the federal Uniform Holiday Bill in 1968, Connecticut residents were largely reluctant to move Veterans Day observances from November 11.
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Willimantic’s American Thread Plant–A Multinational Corporate Takeover
American Thread’s arrival in Willimantic in 1899 demonstrates Connecticut’s role in the Progressive Era’s “rise of big business” and “incorporation of America.”
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When Elections in Hartford Were a Piece of Cake
Unlike today, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Election Day met with great celebration.
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Why Was New Haven Divided into Nine Squares?
The layout of New Haven’s nine-square grid, though not the plan itself, is attributed to the original settlers’ surveyor, John Brockett.
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The Kennedys in Connecticut – Today in History: November 6
On November 6, 1960, forty-eight hours before the Presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts addressed a street rally in New Haven.
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Evaporated Milk’s Connecticut Connection – Who Knew?
In, 1856 businessman Gail Borden Jr. opened the first commercial milk condensery at Wolcottville (now Torrington).
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Firefighters Answer the Call in Greenwich
From neighbors rushing to help neighbors and the town’s first fire department, which opened in 1879, to the present day, the volunteer tradition of firefighting continues despite many changes over the decades.
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The Stamford Foundry Company Made Notable Stoves
When it ceased operations in the mid-1950s after over 120 years, The Stamford Foundry Company was the oldest known stove works in America.
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Connecticut Native American Arts
The remarkable resilience of Connecticut’s native cultures can be seen in the tribes’ social networks, political governance, commitment to educating others about native history, and their ongoing work to sustain their traditions.
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The Art of Burying the Dead: Exploring Connecticut’s Historic Cemeteries
From winged death’s heads to weeping willows, gravestone carvings in Connecticut’s historic cemeteries reflect changing attitudes toward mourning and memorialization.
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The Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper – Today in History: October 29
On October 29, 1764, New Haven printer Thomas Green established a weekly newspaper, the Connecticut Courant, in Hartford.
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The “Welcoming Beacon” of Sheffield Island Lighthouse
Sheffield Island, is home to one of Connecticut’s historic lighthouses—a stone structure with a celebrated past dating back two hundred years.
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Connecticut’s Sleepy Hollow
Was Washington Irving’s famous schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, modeled after a man who once called Milford home?
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Colonel Ruth A. Lucas: Literary Advocate
In 1968, Ruth A. Lucas became the first African American woman in the air force to attain the rank of colonel and advocated for literacy her whole career.
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John Frederick Kensett Illuminates the 19th-Century Landscape
John Frederick Kensett was a landscape painter now identified with Luminism—a style of painting utilizing delicate brushstrokes to capture subtle natural light.
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Goodspeed Opera House Opens – Today in History: October 24
On October 24, 1877, the Goodspeed Opera House on the Connecticut River in East Haddam officially opened to the public.
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Building a Nation Brick by Brick
Brick making was an important industry in Windsor even in its colonial days.
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The “Perfect Handle” Hatchet – Who Knew?
In the early 1900s, H.D. Smith and Company of Plantsville began the manufacture of a line of “Perfect Handle” hand tools.
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“A Noble and Precious Life”: Edgar M. Woodford, Civil Engineer, Abolitionist, and Soldier
This Avon-born man not only put his talents on the map, literally, he also went west to secure Kansas as a free state.
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Yankee Ingenuity: Curtis Veeder, a Mechanical Genius and Shrewd Businessman
Curtis Veeder patented a bicycle seat he sold to the Pope Company, and later invented a cyclometer for measuring distances traveled by bicycles.
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Laura Wheeler Waring: Renowned African American Portrait Artist and Educator
Born in Hartford, Laura Wheeler Waring was an eminent portrait artist of prominent African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance.
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David Bushnell and his Revolutionary Submarine
How a farmer’s son became the Father of Submarine Warfare during the American Revolution.
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Vietnam Protests in Connecticut
Opposition to the war in Vietnam manifested itself in Connecticut in many of the same ways it did across the country.
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Gerald MacGuire and the Plot to Overthrow Franklin Roosevelt
Gerald MacGuire, a prominent Connecticut businessman, became deeply involved in a reported plot to overthrow the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.
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The Merger That Was Not Meant To Be: Yale University and Vassar College
Yale University’s failed merger with Vassar College—a women’s college in Poughkeepsie, New York—in the late-1960s gave Yale the final push into coeducation.
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Gerald Chapman: America’s First “Public Enemy Number One”
On October 12, 1924, in New Britain, Connecticut, Gerald Chapman became America’s first “Public Enemy Number One.”
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General Joseph R. Hawley Helps Commemorate Connecticut’s Civil War Soldiers
“Let monuments be raised in every town, let songs be sung and orations delivered,” urged this state politician and skilled speechmaker.
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Mohegan Federal Recognition
“We are no longer the little old tribe that lives upon the hill. We are now the Nation that lives upon the hill.”
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Henry Deming: Mayor of Hartford and New Orleans
Henry Deming served as mayor of Hartford and then as the provisional mayor of New Orleans during the Civil War before writing a biography of Ulysses S. Grant.
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Establishing Roots in Oxford
The arrival of sawmills, gristmills, and wool manufacturing enterprises prospered in the newly incorporated town of Oxford in the early 19th century.
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Hartford’s Industrial Day – Today in History: October 7
Hartford celebrated the 1908 opening of the Bulkeley Bridge, which connected Hartford and East Hartford, with a three-day extravaganza.
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A Different “Type” of Connecticut Industry
In the middle of the 1800s, the invention of the typewriter revolutionized the way Americans communicated, including in Connecticut.
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Children of the Reconcentrados: Caroline Selden’s Cuban School
During the Cuban War of Independence, Caroline Selden opened a school for Cuban children in Brooklyn, NY and Old Saybrook, CT.
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Get Out Your Paper Dress, Gal! – Who Knew?
In 1966, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford was featured on the popular TV show, I’ve Got a Secret.
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Eighteen Years in the Making: Connecticut’s 1991 Gay Rights Law
Connecticut’s 1991 “gay-rights law” was one of the state’s first LGBTQ+ civil rights laws and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, and credit.
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The Windsor Economy: A River Ran Through It
Windsor’s location on the Connecticut River shaped the area’s development dating back to its earliest recorded years.
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Sylvester Graham: Progressive Advocate for Healthy Living
Sylvester Graham is known as much for his sermons on morality as his advocacy of a healthy lifestyle and his creation of the graham cracker.
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Monument to Hero of the Greenwich Police Department – Who Knew?
A memorial in Byram Park honors Yogi, who became the first police dog of the Greenwich Police Department in 1988.
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Connecticut Yankee Brings Power to the People
For nearly 30 years the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company operated a nuclear power plant in Haddam Neck, Connecticut.
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A Willington Visionary Preserves the Nation’s Colonial Past
Jared Sparks was a Unitarian minister, editor, and historian who went on to serve as President of Harvard University in the middle of the 19th century.
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Education/Instrucción Combats Housing Discrimination
This group’s bilingual name reflected its educational mission as well as its dedication to unified, multicultural cooperation for the common good.
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Lobsters and Oysters and Clams: A Short History of Seafood in Connecticut
The ocean’s bounty has been savored along the Connecticut coastline for as long as humans have been around to bring it on shore.
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Boone Guyton Tested the Limits of World-Famous Aircraft
A long-time resident of Woodbridge, Boone Guyton was one of the most prolific test pilots in US aviation history.
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Connecticut Pin Makers
For the latter half of the 19th century and for much of the 20th century, Connecticut led the nation in pin production.
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Saddles Fit For a Shah
Since 1794, Hartford-based Smith-Worthington Saddlery has made tack for horses—along with the occasional ostrich harness and space suit prototype.
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