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TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets

July 29, 1893, Town Marshal Andrew J. Blunk, Parkland Police Department, died arresting a man on a warrant.  The marshal’s murderer would probably have escaped with his life had not the 18-year-old son of the marshal avenged his father’s death on sight.

July 29, 1894, Officer William W. Weathered, Lexington Police Department, died from a gunshot while attempting to arrest a drunk man near South Broadway and Bolivar Street.

July 20, 1920, staging an 8th inning rally, the Louisville Colonels beat the St. Paul Saints 8-7 in Louisville in the 3rd game of the series.  When the umpire called a St. Paul player out at home, in the 9th inning, a riot broke out, the stands emptied, and, many assaulted the umpire.  The police had to be called to the stadium to stop the violence.

July 29, 1933, Sheriff Willie McKinley Winningham, Clinton County Sheriff’s Department, died while attempting to serve a warrant on a man in the highway community.  He was shot in the man’s home with a .38 caliber handgun.  Sheriff Winningham, who was alone at the time, was able to return fire and killed the suspect.

July 29, 1939, Chief of Police George Morrison Dickey, Cynthiana Police Department, died while conducting an investigation involving a farmer who was abusing a 15-year-old girl.

July 29, 1939, Old Latonia Race Course shuts down.  Standard Oil of Ohio bought and dismantled the facility during WWII.

July 29, 1948, President Truman told of his vision of the eventual end of segregation of Negroes in the Army and Navy.

July 29, 1950, Army SGT Bish Boggs from Laurel County, Army PFC James T. Brammer from Rowan County, Army PFC Ernest Gray from Hancock County, and Army PVT Leslie B. Latham from Hopkins County, died in the Korean War.

July 29, 1962, a federal court fined four defendants in a Chicago-Louisville horse race scratch-sheet operation $17,000.  They broke a new law banning inter-state shipment of gambling material.

July 29, 1967, Army CPL Ervil T. Bray from Somerset, Navy SN William D. Collins from Paris, Marine Corps CPL Lee R. Taylor from Coalgood in Harlan County, and Navy AN Kerry D. Wisdom from Princeton in Caldwell County, died in the Vietnam War.

July 29, 1968, Army PFC Paul D. Aton from Franklin in Simpson County died in the Vietnam War.

July 29, 1970, the Army announced plans to sink nearly 3,000 tons of obsolete nerve gas rockets, encased in concrete and steel coffins in the Atlantic Ocean, 250 miles of the Florida coast.

July 29, 1975, the EPA banned the pesticides chlordane and heptachlor.

Friday night, July 29, 1977, about 65 die-hard Elvis fans began to camp out at Rupp Arena to buy tickets that went on sale Sunday.  The 10,400 tickets cost $5 to $15, and each person could buy 10.  Rupp Arena expected 10,000 people to stand in line with an anticipated sellout time at noon; however, they sold out that evening.  Elvis died on August 16; the concert was to be on August 23.

July 29, 1985, astronaut Franklin Story Musgrave, who considers Lexington his hometown, returned to earth from the Space Shuttle Program’s 19th flight and the Space Shuttle Challenger’s 8th flight.

July 29, 1986, Detective Jack S. Deuser, Jefferson County Police Department, died from electrocution when he dived into a creek to save a woman who had also been electrocuted.

July 29, 1990, UK paid a Washington lobbying firm nearly $700,000 to help win special congressional legislation for a new research center.  Senator W. Ford commented, “I really don’t know much about it; you will have to ask UK if they got their money worth.”

July 29, 1999, fourteen UK anthropology students wrapped up a five-week dig at the Boone Station State Historic Site in rural southern Fayette County.  The Boone family settled the land about six miles from Fort Boonesborough after the fort became too crowded.

July 29, 2000, George W. Bush told-rained soaked Kentuckians that he would be the 1st Republican presidential nominee to carry the state since his father won its eight electoral votes in 1988.

July 29, 2000, a Kentucky bred and Keeneland graduate take Delmar’s GII $207,000 Bing Crosby Stakes for three-year-olds and upward.

July 29, 2010, Toyota Motor Corp. announced another recall in the U.S., this time for a steering problem in 373,000 Avalon sedans built for the 2000-04 model years in Georgetown.

July 29, 2010, Rick Pitino told the court he worried that his wife and kids would find out about his one-night stand with a woman he met in a bar.  That is why he didn’t immediately tell police about her demands for cars, cash, and housing because he wanted to keep the affair quiet.

July 29, 2014, Hamburg Pavilion sold for $185.7 million, thought to be the biggest land transaction ever in Fayette County.

Kentucky Trivia:  Bloomfield Manor, a 24,252 square foot building, located at 1202 Delong Place in Lexington is the largest single family home in Kentucky.  It belongs to Alan and Irene Bloomfield.  Alan is the former owner of Galls Inc., an equipment-supply business for police and fire departments, federal agents, and emergency medical teams.

July 29, 2017, the Derby and Preakness winners battle in Saratoga’s GII $588,000 Jim Dandy Stakes for three-year-olds.  A Kentucky bred won.

July 29, 2019, another Bob Baffert horse died in training, this time at Del Mar.

On July 29, 2019, Senator M. McConnell, on the Senate floor, launched a blistering attack on the Democrats for blaming Russia for all their problems.  But unfortunately, Mitch only spoke out after the corporate TV news outlets called him Moscow Mitch and Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post called him a Russian asset.  In 2017, the Democrats lost to a game show host/con man, and two years later, they still blamed their embarrassing campaign failures on Russia instead of their pro-corporate, pro-war policies.

July 29, 2020, housing advocates asked Governor A. Beshear not to lift the moratorium on evictions, possibly causing 220,000 Kentuckians to go homeless.  Meanwhile, the governor announced 619 new cases and five new deaths for totals of 28,727 and 724.  The ages of those new deaths ranged from 58 to 87.  The governor then announced that Rich Storm was no longer the commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

July 29, 2021, Governor A. Beshear recommended but did not mandate that all Kentucky students and staff, K-12, wear masks due to the Delta variant.  He went on to say that if people don’t wear masks, there will be more outbreaks.  Today, scientists agree the virus is now endemic and everyone will get it, masks may help in some ways.