Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Dolly Wood, the 1^st white female born in Mason County, in 1786.

December 14, 1796, Kentucky created two counties.

December 14, 1796, Kentucky created Montgomery County from Clark County in honor of Richard Montgomery, a military general killed at the Battle of Quebec.  Mount Sterling is the county seat.  Other cities and towns include: Camargo, Jeffersonville, Judy, and Levee.  Montgomery County was the 22^nd county created and covers 199 square miles.

December 14, 1796, Kentucky created Bracken County from Campbell County and Mason County and was named in honor of William Bracken, trapper and frontiersman.  Brooksville is the county seat.  Other localities are Augusta, Foster, and Germantown.  Bracken County was the 24^th county created and covers 209 square miles.

December 14, 1798, Kentucky created three counties.

December 14, 1798, Kentucky created Henry County from Shelby County and was named in honor of Patrick Henry, Revolutionary War-era legislator and U.S. founding father.  New Castle is the county seat.  Other cities and towns include: Bethlehem, Campbellsburg, Defoe, Eminence, Franklinton, Lockport, Pendleton, Pleasureville, Port Royal, Smithfield, Sulphur and Turners Station.  Henry County was the 36^th county created and covers 291 square miles.

December 14, 1798, Kentucky created Cumberland County from Green County for the Cumberland River, which flows through the county. Burkesville is the county seat.  Other cities and towns include: Marrowbone, Amandaville, Bakerton, Bow, Dubre, Green Grove, Grider, Judio, Kettle, Modoc, Peytonsburg and Waterview.  Cumberland County was the 37^th county created and covers 305 square miles.

December 14, 1798, Kentucky created Gallatin County from Franklin County and Shelby County in honor of Albert Gallatin, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.  Warsaw is the county seat.  Other cities and towns located in the county include Glencoe and Sparta.  Gallatin County was the 30^th county created, the 2^nd smallest and covers 105 square miles.

December 14, 1821, Kentucky created Lawrence County from Floyd County and Greenup County in honor of James Lawrence, a naval commander during the War of 1812.  Louisa is the county seat.  Other cities and towns include Blaine, Cherryville, Fallsburg, Kise, Ulysses, Lowmansville, and Webbville.  Lawrence County was the 70^th county created and covers 420 square miles.

December 14, 1825, Kentucky created Russell County from Cumberland County, Adair County and Wayne County in honor of William Russell (1758–1825), pioneer and state legislator.  Jamestown is the county seat.  Other localities are Russell Springs and Creelsboro.  Russell County was the 81^st county created and covers 250 square miles.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Miss Kathleen Mulligan, born in 1889, the 1^st woman to sit as a judge in Kentucky when appointed a Lexington municipal judge in 1928.  She was also the 1^st woman vice president of the Kentucky Bar Association, the 1^st woman on the Kentucky membership committee of the ABA, and 1^st woman secretary of the Fayette County Democratic Committee.

December 14, 1899, a meeting took place in the Capital Hotel, providing the 1^st hint of dissent from Democrats to contest the November election in which a Republican won the governor’s mansion.  Goebel, who traveled out of town on inauguration day, returned to Frankfort, having stated he was not eager to contest the election and would leave that up to his party.

December 14, 1907, Town Marshal Albert Clutterbuck, Florence Police Department, died when the town’s former marshal shot him.  The former marshal blamed Marshal Clutterbuck for being fired from the position earlier in the year.

December 14, 1923, Deputy Sheriff James Farris Ball, McCreary County Sheriff’s Office, died from a gunshot by an unknown person as he was attempting to arrest two suspects.  The also wounded his partner.

December 14, 1938, Judy Garland sang My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!” on a live radio show called America Calling.  She later covered it again on The All Time Flop Parade with Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters.

December 14, 1966, Navy PO3 James H. Daulton from Sloans Valley in Pulaski County died in the Vietnam War.

December 14, 1967, Army SFC Louis W. Wadlington from Salem in Livingston County died in the Vietnam War.

December 14, 1970, the survey below ran in the Lexington paper.

December 14, 1981, approximately 4,200 gallons of oil spilled into the Cumberland River from a corroded pipe leading from an oil well to a storage tank near the river.  A Kansas firm owned the oil and did not know of the leak for days.

December 14, 1985, Samuel Kern Alexander, Jr., became WKU’s 7^th president.  The Cumberland County native grew up in a family long involved in Kentucky education.  The school paid the new president $75,000 for his 1st year.

December 14, 1985, an early morning fire destroyed the First Unitarian Church of Louisville, a 114-year old downtown landmark.

December 14, 1990, a UK nuclear physics professor announced his invention to make airline travel safer by detecting plastic explosives and narcotics hidden in airplane luggage.

December 14, 1990, Governor W. Wilkinson began filming television commercials designed to showcase his administration.  Wilkerson’s press secretary made it clear that the move had nothing to do with Martha Wilkinson’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor.  The governor’s term ended December 1991.

On December 14, 1990, the Kentucky lottery became official when legislators passed a bill that created an eight-member lottery board.  Governor W. Wilkinson appointed a president and board.

December 14, 2000, the EPA called out Kentucky power plants for large amounts of mercury spewing from their wastewater, claiming a significant hazard to public health.  The EPA mandated the pollution be reduced, with the new requirements taking effect in 2004.

December 14, 2005, President George W. Bush and U.S. Congress renewed and modified the Patriot Act, further eroding civil liberties in the name of protecting citizens against terrorists.

December 14, 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at President George W. Bush during an Iraqi press conference.  The journalist served nine months of a three-year sentence because he had no prior record.

December 14, 2015, Jordan Smith won season nine of the singing competition The Voice.

December 14, 2020, healthcare workers were the 1^st Kentuckians to receive the experimental vaccine.  A total of 12,500 vaccines were en route to hospitals throughout the state.  Meanwhile, the Electoral College announced Joe Biden reached 270 votes to win the presidential race officially.

Positives:  1,802 / 224,890
Deaths:  17 / 2,224 – 1^st Death 3/16/20
50&over: 2,165 / 49-30: 56 / 29&under: 3

December 14, 2021, Governor A. Beshear announced an investigation into the collapse of the Mayfield candle factory during the tornado that occurred days earlier, while Breman started to rebuild from Ground Zero in their fire station.  Meanwhile, UK agreed to pay their president over $1 million per year.  The CDC kept the alarm going with news on the new “aggressive” omicron variant while Pfizer touted their new pill that allegedly stopped people from going to the hospital if they got any variant of the coronavirus.