Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets
April 8, 1782, John Floyd, his brother, Charles, and Alexander Breckinridge traveled from Floyd’s Station on Beargrass Creek to Bullitt’s Lick. Native Americans attacked them, and John received severe injuries and died two days later at the lick. Kentucky lost two of her three-county lieutenants in less than eight months.
April 8, 1826, Henry Clay challenged John Randolph of Roanoke to a duel after John insulted him in a Senate speech. The clash occurred near Pimmitt Run in Northern Virginia. Both of their 1st shots missed. Clay’s 2nd shots also missed. Randolph then raised his pistol and fired it in the air. The duel ended with a handshake.
April 8, 1836, Colonel Sidney Sherman led the Kentucky Rifles at the Battle of San Jacinto where they made the famous war cry, “Remember the Alamo!” The battle ended Mexico’s land disputes with the U.S.
April 8, 1862, Scott County native George Washington Johnson, the 1st of two Confederate governors of Kentucky, died in the Battle of Shiloh in TN. Kentucky swore in the 2nd governor, Richard Hawes, two months later.
April 8, 1864, Henry and Lucretia Clay’s remains finally laid to rest together. Lucretia died two days earlier. They are interned under Lexington Cemetery’s grand monument. Mr. Clay died 12 years prior.
April 8, 1922, William White, a Jack’s Creek Pike farmer, shot his neighbor Arthur Johnson, 30ish, six times in a Lexington Post office; two bullets hit the victim. Wright stood over Johnson as he died and said, “Damn You; I got you this time where you won’t come back.” He told the police at the scene, “I had to do it.” Mr. & Mrs. White arrived in Lexington by buggy.
April 8, 1931, Craig Johnson, 23, scion of a wealthy Danville family, shot Hugh “Reddy” Smith, 56, also from a prominent Danville family, after an all-night dice game. Witnesses said the liquor made Johnson “crazed.”
April 8, 1948, Keeneland opened the 11-day Spring Meet during which an afternoon windstorm caused considerable damage in Central Kentucky. The storms led to the death of a groom, injured three others, and heavily damaged two barns.
April 8, 1951, Army CPL’s Earl L. Hoffman from Hardin County and William F. Ledington, Jr., from Laurel County died in the Korean War.
April 8, 1952, Army SGT Donald Burdette from Marion County died in the Korean War.
April 8, 1960, a Civil Rights Bill passed after eight weeks of 18 senators trying to stop the passage every step of the way. This little-known Civil Rights Act helped prove racially discriminatory voter-registration practices and provided evidence to help pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Kentucky Senators Morton and Cooper both voted in favor.
April 8, 1967, Army SGT Roger D. Cooper from Fordsville in Ohio County died in the Vietnam War.
April 8, 1968, Army SSG Robert H. Colegrove from Grayson in Carter County died in the Vietnam War.
April 8, 1970, Army SGT Troy H. Batterton from Pleasureville died in the Vietnam War.
On April 8, 1972, Trooper James Willard McNeely and Patrol Officer David Childs of the Kentucky Water Patrol drowned when their boat went over Dam 4 on the Kentucky River. The officers were searching for two missing juveniles.
April 8, 1987, former Governor Julian Carroll asked the current Lt. Governor S. Beshear in a letter, to drop out of the gubernatorial race. Beshear said the request was “too ridiculous to respond.”
April 8, 1992, tennis great Arthur Ashe announced that he had contracted AIDS from brain surgery. He died in 1993 from complications due to the virus.
April 8, 1997, Host Communications announced that Paris native and UK grad Tom Leach would replace Ralph Hacker as the radio voice for Kentucky football. Hacker kept calling UK’s basketball games.
April 8, 2001, Tiger Woods won the Masters to claim ownership of all four majors at the same time.
On April 8, 2004, Marine CPL Nicholas J. Dieruf, 21, of Versailles, died in Iraq, fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Nicholas married three months earlier.
On April 8, 2017, Alec Baldwin returned to Saturday Night Live to impersonate President Trump with a skit set in Union. He took questions from local supporters in a surprise town hall meeting. Trump received 67.9% of the Boone County votes.
On April 8, 2018, locals dedicated Historical Marker #2532, commemorating the history and people of Eastern Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in Louisville. Locals 1st documented the burial ground in the 1840s before its 1854 incorporation.
April 8, 2019, gubernatorial candidate Adam Edelen called for decriminalizing marijuana possession, on a Lexington stump.
April 8, 2021, after days off the front page, the coronavirus headlines returned when the governor begged Kentuckians to get vaccinated. “We are in an absolute race with variants to prevent any type of 4th surge. We need you to sign up for whichever vaccine is available.”