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TODAY IN KENTUCKY TRIVIA

Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets

January 18, 1810, Kentucky created Butler County from Logan County and Ohio County and named it in honor of Richard Butler, Revolutionary War General.  Morgantown is the county seat.  Other cities and towns include: Rochester, Woodbury, Aberdeen, Dunbar, Huntsville, Jetson, Logansport, Monford, Provo, Quality, Reedyville, Roundhill, Welch’s (or Welchs) Creek, and Youngtown.  The 53rd county created, Butler County covers 431 square miles.

KY 1810
640px Map of Kentucky highlighting Butler County.svg
By David Benbennick

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Warsaw native Richard Yates, Illinois’s 13th governor, born in 1815.  His family left Kentucky when he was a youngster but he continued to have ties to his native state as a student at Georgetown College (he graduated from Illinois College) and then Transylvania University’s School of Law.

January 18, 1924, Deputy Sheriff Absolom “App” Perry, Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, died from an ambush as he and another deputy searched for stills in the area of Dry Creek.

January 18, 1928, Burton Fork native Buell Kazee recorded The Dying Solider, also known as Oh Brother I Am Dying Now, in New York City.  He is considered one of the most successful folk musicians of the 1920s and experienced a career comeback during the American folk music revival of the 1960s.  Burton Fork resides in Magoffin County.

January 18, 1945, Governor Simeon S. Willis called on “every patriotic citizen to encourage” the United Mine Workers to work two Sundays in the next 30 days to replenish the nation’s coal supply drained by the war.

January 18, 1953, Governor Lawrence W. Wetherby and his fiscal experts began studying the pari-mutuel-tax bill to find out if it would hurt the Kentucky Derby.  They promised if it did, they would insert amendments to adjust accordingly.

January 18, 1963, Congress proposed the compulsory branding of every cigarette pack with a danger warning.  House Agriculture Chief questioned the proposal’s legality and called for calm to the organizations who opposed it.

January 18, 1968, Navy HN Jeffrey S. Aker from Covington died in the Vietnam War.

January 18, 1969, Army CPL Orman Stone from Barlow in Ballard County died in the Vietnam.

January 18, 1969, after defeating Tennessee on the road, the Kentucky basketball players came home on the same day to Memorial Coliseum to blow out 1,000 candles on a large cake celebrating the 1st program in NCAA history to win 1,000 games.  The Wildcats beat the Volunteers 69-66.

On January 18, 1971, a Jessamine County grand jury indicted Lexington, its mayor, and city commissioners on two pollution counts.  The county claimed the city’s trash endangered its residents’ health and aquatic life.

January 18, 1975, Álvaro Pineda, 29, while riding at Santa Anita Park, died in a freak accident.  In the starting gate, his horse, Austin Mittler, reared and flipped over, crushing Álvaro’s head against the gate’s steel frame.  His family would suffer a similar loss three years later when his younger brother Roberto died at Pimlico after an accident during a race.  In 1974, Pineda’s peers voted him the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award.  The annual award is given to an American jockey who demonstrates high personal and professional standards on and off the track.

January 18, 1980, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People commended Governor John Y. Brown, Jr. for appointing two African-Americans to high-level positions in state government.  The governor appointed Jefferson District Judge William E. McAnulty, secretary to the Department of Justice and George W. Wilson, commissioner of the Bureau of Corrections.

January 18, 1980, the vice president of a company that made radar devices testified in a Kentucky courtroom that radar is not infallible, but the errors are so rare that a device may clock a million cars before making a mistake.  He was the only witness in a packed courtroom for a speeding ticket trial in Boone County.

January 18, 1987, a historical horror descended on UK basketball as LSU crushed the Cats 76-41 in Rupp Arena.  Around 23,285 fans melted to 15,000 with six minutes left, leaving Coach Sutton begging for forgiveness and stating it was the most embarrassing moment in his 30-year career.  Rex Chapman, “I didn’t think we could get beat that way!”

Kentucky Trivia:  The 35-point loss was the biggest margin of defeat at home for Kentucky since the Wildcats lost by 38 to Cincinnati 48-10 in 1926.  It was the worst loss for Kentucky anywhere since City College of New York defeated the Wildcats by 39 points in the 1950 National Invitation Tournament.

January 18, 1988, with more than 100 people gathered in the Capitol rotunda, Governor Wallace G. Wilkinson remembered the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his life stating, “He touched all our lives making the world and Kentucky a better place.”

January 18, 1990, the Kentucky chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) named Paula Freeman as their 1st leader.

January 18, 1990, a Franklin Circuit Judge denied a motion to set aside the conviction of former Rep. Jerry Lundergan.  Kentucky convicted Lundergan in 1989 of unlawful use of influence by a legislator after his family’s catering company took money from the state unlawfully.

January 18, 1993, Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered and celebrated in Kentucky.

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From Strength To Love

January 18, 1999, Kentucky celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  In 1999, New Hampshire became the last state to make it a paid holiday for state employees.  It wasn’t till January 2000, did every state in the Union observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the 1st nationwide celebration.

January 18, 2001, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department stated their intentions of turning 23,000 acres in Western Kentucky into a wildlife refuge.  Locals know the flood-prone land along the Ohio River as Henderson County’s Scuffletown’s bottom area.

January 18, 2003, thousands march on Washington, D.C. to protest the Iraqi War.

January 18, 2005, in their 2nd try at passing a state budget, lawmakers received an additional $622 million because the actual tax collection for corporations and coal production exceeded expectations.

January 18, 2005, fifty mourners gathered in Covington to honor a Vietnam Veteran who froze to death beneath a railroad bridge on Christmas Eve.  Joe Young, 57, died alone in single-digit weather.

January 18, 2008, UK announced that Joker Phillips would be the next Wildcat Football Coach after Coach Rich Brooks retired.  The announcement also spoke of Coach Brook’s pay raise to $1.6 million a year.  Coach Brooks retired after the 2009 season.

January 18, 2010, Rachel Alexandra became the 2009 Horse of the Year (HOY) as well as the Champion 3-Year-Old Filly.  She is only the 4th female HOY since the inception of the Eclipse Awards, the others being Azeri in 2002, Lady’s Secret in 1986, and All Along in 1983.  The Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills hosted the 39th annual Eclipse Awards.

January 18, 2010, America remembered Martin Luther King, Jr.  Only two other figures have national holidays in the U.S. honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

January 18, 2010, the Kentucky State Police reported that Kentucky Highway fatalities declined for a 5th straight year in 2009 with 782 deaths.  There were 826 deaths in 2008 and in 2005 there were 985.

January 18, 2014, the U.S. General released the 50th-anniversary report on smoking and health.  Since 1965, the number of U.S. smokers declined from 42% to 18%.  But state-to-state stats from 1995 onward show Kentucky increased by .5%, while the nation decreased by 5%.

January 18, 2014, Keeneland-based Wise Dan became the 2013 Horse of the Year, champion turf male, and champion older horse, marking the 2nd consecutive year he swept the three titles.  No other horse has received three Eclipse Awards in a single season for two years in a row since the awards started in 1971.  Gulfstream Park hosted the 43rd edition.

January 18, 2016, Kentucky remembered King’s legacy in during a arctic blast that brought single-digit temperatures.  Dr. King attended Boston University and graduated in 1955 with a doctorate in systematic theology.  He also had a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from Morehouse College and a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary.

On January 18, 2019, three groups that met in the Lincoln Memorial’s cold shadow could hardly have been more different.  They were indigenous rights activists from Michigan, Catholic schoolboys from Kentucky, and Hebrew Israelites from the nation’s capital.

January 18, 2020, women in over 180 cities across America, including Louisville and Lexington, attend the 4th annual Women’s March hosted by the National Organization for Women.

January 18, 2020, a Keeneland graduate trifecta won the GIII $200,000 Lecomte Stakes for three-year-olds at Fairgrounds.

January 18, 2021, Lexington held its annual Freedom March downtown with Governor A. Beshear, the only in-person event due to the coronavirus.  In Washington, Janet Yellen, the ex-Fed Chair, Biden’s pick to run the treasury, stated the country needed to “act big” on the next coronavirus relief package.  The 3rd relief package and Biden’s 1st would later be $1.9 trillion.  Meanwhile, Centre announced a parent of one of their students gave 10,000 coronavirus tests to the college.

January 18, 2022, federal authorities sentenced Patrick Baker to 39½ years in prison for killing a man during a drug transaction.  Governor M. Bevin pardoned him in 2019 for the same crime.  The lone sibling of Baker’s victim, Donald Mills, told a reporter she had hoped for a longer sentence, but “I’ll take this.”