Kentucky Trivia
July 28, 1914, World War I began.
July 28, 1920, Governor E. Morrow, while in New York, captured a thief in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel lobby as the robber exited the room he had just robbed.
July 28, 1930, Greensburg set the hottest day in Kentucky when the thermometer hit 114° F (46° C). The summer of 1930 set many “hot” records in the Commonwealth.
July 28, 1935, Deputy Constable James Parsons, Carter County Constable’s Office, died from gunshots while attempting to arrest two drunk men selling moonshine outside of a church service in Clifty.
July 28, 1943, American Airlines Flight 63, a Douglas DC-3, crashed near Trammel in Allen County. The crew lost control due to severe turbulence and violent downdrafts; 20 of the 22 people on board died.
July 28, 1949, a bay son of War Admiral, Lady Lark, brought the top price at Keeneland’s Summer Yearling Sales. Hip number 390, consigned by Mereworth, sold to George Ring for $27,000. In the background are auctioneers George Swinebroad, left, and Joe Palmer.
July 28, 1951, Army CPL Fred G. Hill from Morgan County died in the Korean War.
July 28, 1960, Kentucky Finance Commissioner Robert F. Matthews, Jr, disqualified Lexington’s Quality Meat Packing Company, the source of 90% of all meat consumed at state institutions, from future state bids. The Commish removed the company after repeated warnings that they had delivered to Eddyville Penitentiary a consignment of bacon so salty that “the prisoners wouldn’t eat it.”
July 28, 1963, construction crews were busy building the building and merging I-75 and I-64 on the northern outskirts of Lexington on the Old Dixie Plantation.
July 28, 1968, Marine Corps PFC John M. Lancaster from Louisville died in the Vietnam War.
July 28, 1970, Frank Burk, Jr., the son of Louisville’s mayor, reacted quickly and saved the life of a four-year-old girl. After onlookers pulled her unconscious from an unsupervised public pool, Frank gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
July 28, 1975, Ilie Nastase displayed little of his court manners that earned the nickname “Nasty” at Louisville’s Pro Tennis Classic.
July 28, 1981, Governor John Y. Brown, Jr. requested federal aid for farmers in 72 counties due to wet weather during the planting season.
July 28, 1985, federal and state authorities began investigating allegations of absentee vote fraud in at least seven counties, including Knox, Magoffin, Marion, Monroe, Clinton, Russell, and Garrard.
July 28, 1990, federal authorities indicted Kentucky pharmacists for illegally selling painkillers, tranquilizers, and sleeping pills. During the previous 18 months, in an unprecedented wave of criminal cases, nine Kentucky pharmacists illegally dispensed drugs, allegedly. Yet, not one received discipline from the Kentucky Pharmacy Board. Does Big Pharma own everyone?
July 28, 1992, the first 19 inmates arrived at the new federal minimum-security prison in Clay County. Many of the locals complained when only 23 of the 184 people hired were actually from the county.
July 28, 1995, Louisville native Paul Byrd made his MLB debut for the New York Mets.
July 28, 2001, seven went to post in Saratoga’s GI $1,008,000 Whitney Handicap for three-year-olds and upward.
July 28, 2005, Governor E. Fletcher said he made a mistake by asking his field offices to help with applications for civil service jobs. He went on to say that, in retrospect, dismantling the old patronage system produced a vacuum that needed filling. He made the statements at the 1st meeting of a task force to study the state merit system.
July 28, 2010, Rick Pitino took the stand to tell the courtroom, “I could never rape a woman or be physically harmful to any woman.” He also stated that the woman who accused him, unzipped his pants.
By July 28, 2012, the impact of an estimated 2,000 mining layoffs in 2012 began to hit Eastern Kentucky coal communities. The federal government’s war on coal, historically low prices for natural gases, and the unseasonably warm winter of 2011-12 left power plants with coal stockpiles.
July 28, 2015, after a long wait, the northbound lanes of I-65 from Louisville to Jeffersonville, IN, opened on the Abraham Lincoln Bridge. The bridge officially opened in December. The new bridge replaced the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, known locally as the Second Street Bridge.
July 28, 2018, a Kentucky bred won Saratoga’s GII $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes for three-year-olds.
July 28, 2019, the federal government released a report claiming Kentucky teenagers were 140% more likely to die in a car crash than the average U.S. teen.
On July 28, 2021, due to the new Delta variant, Governor A. Beshear told all state employees, again, to wear masks while working in state offices indoors. This mandate included all visitors.
July 28, 2022, six months after the last round of destruction, historic flooding once again consumed Eastern Kentucky taking at least three lives overnight, trapping hundreds in their homes and leaving thousands homeless. Heavy flooding occurred in Breathitt, Floyd, Perry, Knott, Leslie, Pike, and Magoffin Counties. Governor A. Beshear declared a state of emergency and called the disaster, “one of the worst and most devastating flooding events in Kentucky history.”