TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

March 1, 2023March 1, 2023

Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets

March 1, 1769, Judge Richard Henderson became one of two judges appointed to the Superior Court of North Carolina by their governor. Many historians believe the judge employed Daniel Boone as early as 1764.

March 1, 1782, a party of 25 Wyandots surprised Strode’s Station, located between Bryan Station and Fort Boonesborough. The Natives held a 36-hour siege, killed two settlers and destroyed all the sheep and cattle.

On March 1, 1797, legislatures authorized a new road to replace Boone Trace. Joseph Crockett headed the project from Milford, the county seat of Madison County at that time, south through the wilderness to intersect the new Wilderness Road at the site of the present village of Pittsburg, in Laurel County. Simultaneously Congress introduced a bill to place Boone Trace on the National Trail System.

Boone Trace: Valid fears of unseen danger in the wilderness hindered travel into the west. However, with the opening of the trail, thousands of settlers flowed along Boone Trace to claim their land and begin a new life. It can be argued that no other trail is of greater historical significance to the founding of Kentucky and the opening of the west than Boone Trace.

March 1, 1822, Jack Jouett, the “Paul Revere of the South,” passed over. The farmer and politician made the heroic 40-mile ride during the American Revolution. He rode to warn Thomas Jefferson, then the outgoing governor of Virginia that British cavalry wanted to capture him. After the war, Jouett moved across the Appalachian Mountains to what was then called Kentucky County.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Greensburg native Robert Ball Anderson, born into slavery in Green County in 1843. Mr. Anderson became one of Nebraska’s most prominent landowners by capitalizing on the 1873 Timber Act.

March 1, 1847, the state legislature formally passed an act to declare Georgetown as the city’s new name. It was 1^st known as Royal Spring, then Lebanon, and then renamed George Town in 1790 in honor of Gen. George Washington.

On March 1, 1854, the General Assembly approved an act to provide $10,000 for a monument over Henry Clay’s grave two years after his death.

March 1, 1862, all personnel evacuated Camp Beauregard when over 1,000 men died due to severe weather and poor diet. A large boulder monument erected in 1920 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy memorializes the men buried in the mass graves. The Graves County camp at its height housed 5,000 troops from seven states.

March 1, 1912, State University, Lexington (UK), defeated Georgetown College, 19-18, to complete the season with a perfect 9-0 record and earn its 1^st title as Southern Champions.

March 1, 1914, John Caldwell Calhoun Mayo took a special train to the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, where he and his entourage occupied an entire floor. The Gulnare native of Johnson County was one of Kentucky’s great entrepreneurs. Mayo suffered from Bright’s disease.

March 1, 1915, Hollywood releasedBarnaby Rudge, starring Owensboro native Tom Powers. Mr. Powers had an incredibly successful career in America’s entertainment industry.

March 1, 1921, Kentucky upset Tulane, Mercer, Mississippi A&M, and Georgia to win the 1^st Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) basketball championship, one of college basketball’s 1^st tournaments played. Bill King’s free throw with no time left on the clock lifted the Wildcats to the win in Atlanta 20-19. Hundreds of Wildcats fans awaited “play-by-play” via telegraph and greeted the team’s train with a celebration and parade in downtown Lexington.

March 1, 1943, Keeneland became a “suburban” plant and was placed in the classification of tracks told not to operate during World War II because of shortages in rubber. The Keeneland Association leased the Churchill Downs facilities and held three Spring Meets from 1943 to 1945. No Fall Meets occurred.

On March 1, 1954, the U.S. tested an H-bomb design on Bikini Atoll that unexpectedly turned out to be the largest U.S. nuclear test ever exploded. By missing a critical fusion reaction, the Los Alamos scientists had grossly underestimated the size of the explosion. They thought it would yield the equivalent of 5 million tons of TNT, but, “Bravo” yielded 15 megatons — making it more than a thousand times bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

March 1, 1960, a self-described “Kentucky Hillbilly,” Corbin native Henry Alvin Sharpe’s doubledoons were thrown from Madras Gras floats for the 1^st time.

Localtonians wish a Happy Anniversary to Johnny Cash (36) and June Carter (38), who married in Franklin’s 1st Methodist Church in 1968. The night before, the two received a Grammy for their recording of Jackson. It was the 2nd marriage for Cash and the 3rd for Carter.

March 1, 1969, Army SGT Rodney M. Goode and Army SP5 Ben H. Wilkins, Jr. both from Louisville, died in the Vietnam War.

March 1, 1971, Loretta Lynn headlined a concert in Louisville Fairgrounds to raise money for the 39 families who had lost their loved ones in the December Hyden Mine explosion. Loretta just released Coal Miner’s Daughter, and Col. Harlan Sanders reportedly provided free dinners.

March 1, 1973, Robyn Smith became the 1^st female jockey to win a stakes race. Ms. Smith guided North Sea, in Aqueduct’s Paumonok Handicap, to the winner’s circle.

March 1, 1978, Governor J. Carroll bailed out General Hospital of Louisville and asked for millions more for the University of Louisville to operate in the future. The hospital is known for treating Louisville’s poor.

March 1, 1980, John Jacob Niles a composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads passed over. The Dean of American Balladeers, greatly influenced the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Odetta, Joan Baez, Burl Ives, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Bob Dylan, recorded his songs.

March 1, 1981, Sam Bowie blocked the game’s final shot by LSU’s Howard Carter as the #9 Wildcats knocked off the #2 Tigers in Rupp Arena. The UK win prevented LSU from completing an undefeated SEC season.

March 1, 1984, Corrections Employee Patricia Ross, Kentucky Department of Corrections, died at the hands of an inmate in a dining facility at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. The inmate lured Officer Ross into a food storage area and then beat her to death with a 10-pound commercial can opener.

March 1, 1992, Carey Spicer #17 from Lexington, Louie Dampier #10, and Jack Givens #21 from Lexington had their jerseys retired during the half-time of the 80-56 win over Vandy.

March 1, 2000, the Louisville Police awards ceremony intended to honor its officers instead ripped open community wounds over the 1999 shooting of Desmond Rudolph. Mayor Dave Armstrong boycotted the ceremony that many community activists picketed.

March 1, 2014, the GIII $500,000 Gotham Stakes is won by a neck at Aqueduct.

On March 1, 2018, a heckler asked, “Nancy Pelosi, What is Your Net Worth?” The question came during the speaker’s speech on income inequality. In 2018, she ranked 6^th in the House with an estimated net worth of $114,662,521, according to Open Secrets.

March 1, 2019, Kentucky officials held a news conference to fight back on The Courier-Journal stories about Kentucky’s Hepatitis A outbreak. The newspaper reported Kentucky did not aggressively address the outbreak in rural areas. Hepatitis A killed 43 Kentuckians and sickened more than 4,200, creating the deadliest outbreak in the nation in 2019.

March 1, 2020, Kentucky’s largest art museum concluded their tribute to the Kentucky horse for the 1^st time in their 92-year history. The Speed Art Museum, on the campus of UofL, gathered paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, silver, and photographs in an exclusively equine exhibit.

March 1, 2020, the news broadcasted the number of coronavirus cases throughout the world. Over 60 countries reported positive cases while France closed the Louvre. Scientist believed the virus had been infecting America longer than previous thought.

March 1, 2021, Kentucky lawmakers were “strongly encouraged” to wear masks during the 2021 General Assembly that started two days later than expected. The mask guidelines the Senate President and House Speaker set fell just short of a mandate. Governor A. Beshear in his daily briefing, “We need to move faster in the vaccination effort.” In 2.5 months, over 60,400 Kentuckians received a vaccination.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022, the U.S. pro war propaganda, for a proxy war in Ukraine, ramped up on day seven of the Russian invasion. Some religions fasted for Ukraine on Ash Wednesday, cities from coast to coast held vigils, people placed signs in their front yards, and the front pages mongered.