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TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

Happy 231st Birthday

June 1, 1789, Transylvania Seminary held their 1st session in Lexington after moving from Danville.  The Squire’s Sketches of Lexington by J. Winston Coleman, Jr.; pg: 16

June 1, 1789, Native Americans broke into the house of Edmond Stephenson in Madison County and wounded one person.  A number of horses had been stolen prior.

June 1, 1792, Kentucky, with an estimated population of 100,000, officially became a state when the Kentucky State Act took effect.  Under the Presidency of George Washington, Kentucky became the 1st state west of the Appalachian Mountains and the 15th state in the young Union.  It took Virginia’s consent, eight years of prep work, ten statehood conventions, four Congressional enabling acts, to make it happen.

Kentucky Trivia: The 15-star flag represented the original colonies plus Vermont and Kentucky and flew from 1777-1795.  The 2nd of 27 flags that have defined the USA, it inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner” after he saw it fly over Fort McHenry following a British bombardment during the War of 1812.  The following flag would have 22-stars.

June 1, 1800, Kentucky’s 2nd constitution went into operation and went unchanged for 50 years.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Boyle County native John Marshall Harlan, The Great Dissenter, born in 1833.

June 1, 1850, Kentucky’s population reached 982,405, a 26% increase from the 1840 census.  The Commonwealth ranked as the 8th most populated state.

June 1, 1883, according to Lexington officials, 489 persons died from cholera within two months.  However, most of the deaths in Lexington occurred in the first few weeks of June.  A house near Short Street had ten persons die in it; reportedly, a house of entertainment.

June 1, 1899, Constable Jim Beltzer, Leslie County Constable’s Office, died from a gunshot as he escorted a prisoner to the county jail.

June 1, 1900, Garrard County native, Carry A. Nation struck her 1st saloon to fight the evils of liquor.  In 1880, Kansas residents voted for prohibition, but saloonkeepers primarily ignored the law.  Carry tried to change that.  First, she prayed in front of the saloons, and then she used rocks, bricks, and other objects for attacks; she later turned to the hatchet.

June 1, 1912, Patrolman J. Coleman Dawson, Owensboro Police Department, died from a gunshot while arresting a suspected horse thief just across the Indiana state line.

On June 1, 1916, Louisville native Louis Brandeis became the 1st Jewish associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court with a 47-22 Senate confirmation vote.  Congress had always approved nominations on confirmation day; however, Brandeis’s opponents changed that.  Hoping to embarrass Brandeis, the Senate held a public hearing on a Supreme Court nominee for the 1st time in history.  They confirmed President Wilson’s nominee four months later.  The Robin Hood of the Law staved off the corporate takeover of America by decades.

June 1, 1934, Patrolman George Carroll, Irvine Police Department, died from a gunshot during a shootout between a suspect and other officers.

June 1, 1934, UK dedicated a bronze statue of James Kennedy Patterson to commemorate the university’s 1st and longest president.  The 1,800-pound art piece depicts Patterson seated and holding a walking stick in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

June 1, 1942, the 3-cent postage stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of statehood went on sale in Frankfort.  The motif printed in purple ink showed the Capitol’s mural of Daniel Boone and three companions overlooking the Kentucky River painted by Gilbert White.

June 1 stamp
3-cent postage

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Henderson County native Sam Ball, born in 1944.  Sam played on the Super Bowl Champion (V) Colts.

June 1, 1952, Army CPL Earnest L. Vinson from Lewis County died in the Korean War.

June 1, 1953, Britain crowned Queen Elizabeth II.  She took time to congratulate the British expedition that successfully scaled Mt. Everest for the 1st time three days earlier.

June 1, 1960, a former Food and Drug Administrator (FDA) told the press that he advocated for a shakeup of the FDA staff and news laws to drive dangerous or untested medicines off the market.  The FDA and big pharma had exchanged employees for decades, causing significant conflicts of interests.

June 1, 1968, Army 1LT Thomas L. Butler from Monroe in Hart County died in the Vietnam War.

June 1, 1969, Army SGT Bertram A. Carr from Louisville died in the Vietnam War.

June 1, 1969, Sheriff James Madison Sizemore, Clay County Sheriff’s Office, died while serving warrants in Ephram Creek.  They shot him five times with a high-powered rifle as he stepped out of his car.

June 1, 1970, Marine Corps SGT Roe Hopson, Jr. from Milo in Martin County died in the Vietnam War.

On June 1, 1971, the Kentucky school system and Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s (KHSAA) drawn-out conflict came to a head when the schools threatened to sue.  The schools claimed blacks lacked representation on the KHSAA Board of Control.

June 1, 1974, Kentucky announced the number of new strip mine permits more than doubled in the 1st three months of 1974.  The coal boom was on.

June 1, 1981, the 1st Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Bowling Green.

June 1, 1982, Governor J. Brown, Jr. created Garden Week, for the 1st week of June.

June 1, 1992, Kentuckians celebrated 200 years of statehood.

June 1, 1996, Cigar romped at Suffolk Downs in the Massachusetts Handicap to extend his winning streak to 15.

June 1, 1996, police arrested Woody Harrelson in Lee County after he symbolically planted four hemp seeds.  He wanted to challenge the state law, which did not distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana.

On June 1, 2003, Kentucky removed tolls from the Daniel Boone Parkway connecting Hazard and London after Congressman Hal Rogers secured federal funds to pay off the debt.  Governor P. Patton requested the road’s name be changed to the Hal Rogers Parkway as a reward.  The name change caused quite a stir.

June 1, 2003, Kenny Perry won his 6th PGA event by taking the Memorial Tournament by two strokes and earned $900,000.  Perry was born in Elizabethtown and raised in Franklin.

June 1, 2008, Kenny Perry won the Memorial Tournament by two strokes over four others to capture the 10th PGA event; he earned $1,080,000.  Kenny joined Tiger Woods as the only three-time tournament winner founded by Jack Nicklaus.

June 1, 2015, Viper native Jean Ruth Ritchie, folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the Mother of Folk, passed away in Berea at age 90.

On June 1, 2017, members voted Marion Miley into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame.  Meanwhile, President D. Trump withdrew America from the Climate Accord.  In Lexington, the downtown Peregrine Falcon population doubled from three to six.

On June 1, 2018, President D. Trump took steps to bolster the struggling coal-fired power plants, calling it a matter of national and economic security.  In Frankfort, the Martin County Concerned Citizens activist group, the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, and the National Food & Water Watch Group asked AG A. Beshear to investigate the Martin County Water District for corruption.

On June 1, 2019, Henry Clay High School graduate Anna Marie Gilligan received admission to West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy, a feat rarely accomplished.  Meanwhile, Governor M. Bevin escalated his political feud with the Beshear Family when he announced an investigation into his predecessor.

On June 1, 2020, Louisville fired its Police Chief when two officers failed to activate their body cameras during the shooting death of a store owner during a protest against police brutality.  They failed to use the body cameras before.  Meanwhile, the state’s death toll from coronavirus rose to 439; the new deaths ranged from ages 33 to 98.

June 1, 2021, a day after President Biden fought to reinstate a federal mask mandate, The New York Times wrote a story on why mask mandates don’t work.  Throughout the pandemic, few things incited more discord than the mandated use of facemasks as a preventative measure to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

June 1, 2022, after over four decades of chronicling every detail of UK basketball, Jerry Tipton announced his retirement effective July 1.  Jerry is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, and the Marshall University Hall of Fame.