Sam Terry's Kentucky
August 16, 1956 - Procter & Gamble purchased the brand name Duncan Hines from Hines-Park Foods, Inc., a partnership of Bowling Green resident Duncan Hines and Roy Park. As a salesman traveling across America in the 1930s...
August 15, 1782 - British rangers Captain William Caldwell and Alexander McKee (who chose to abandon his support of the American Revolution and pledge allegiance to the British) led 50-60 Canadian loyalists and 500-600 N...
A momentary change of focus today - there are many people and moments in Kentucky history that could be recalled today, but on this day we need to pause to honor America's "Greatest Generation" on this, the 81st annivers...
August 13, 1990 - Washington, Kentucky citizens voted to merge with neighboring Maysville in Mason County. The town has the distinction of being the first in the United States to be named in honor of George Washington, s...
August 11, 1807 - David Rice Atchison, Kentucky's "other" president, was born at Kirklevington in Lexington. While a student at Transylvania University he was a classmate of five other men who would also become U.S. Sen...
August 9, 1803 - John Kennedy began operating the first stagecoach line in Kentucky, running between Lexington and Olympian Springs at Mud Lick in Bath County. Each Thursday at “precisely” 4 a.m. the stagecoach departed ...
August 8, 1801 - Cane Ridge Meeting House near Paris in Bourbon County was the scene of the largest camp meeting in the Great Revival movement. Hosted by the congregation meeting at Cane Ridge and their minister, Barton ...
August 6, 1855 - “Bloody Monday” - American Nativists, commonly known as “Know Nothings,” in Louisville, Kentucky attacked German and Irish Catholic immigrants. An extremist offshoot of the old Whig Party, the Know Nothi...
August 5, 1818 - Drs. Benjamin W. Dudley and William H. Richardson, both members of the faculty of Transylvania University’s Medical College, fought a duel. It was the first documented duel at a location on the Fayette -...
August 4, 1920 – It's the birthday of Helen Thomas, the “First Lady of the Press” known as the “Sitting Buddha,” who covered every U.S. President from Kennedy to Obama. She was born in Winchester, Kentucky to Lebanese im...
August 2, 1916 - Newport, Kentucky native Brig. Gen. John Taliaferro Thompson formed the Auto-Ordnance Company to perfect his design for the Thompson submachine gun.
On August 1, 1956, the Kentucky Turnpike, stretching 39 miles from Louisville to Elizabethtown, opened as the first section of a future interstate highway connecting the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Under construct...
July 31, 1880 - Little did members of St. Jerome Parish in Fancy Farm, Kentucky realize they were establishing what would become one of Kentucky's most treasured political events when they gathered for a picnic. Next wee...
July 30, 1815 - The Market Street Church in Lexington was dedicated with the Rev. James McChord as pastor. Two years earlier, McChord preached a series of sermons at the home of Dr. T.S. Bell. At the time, the bylaws of ...
July 29, 1826 (some sources give July 23) - The Kentucky Association for the Improvement of the Breeds of Livestock was formed in Lexington by a group of 60 individuals which included then-Secretary of State Henry Clay, ...
July 27, 1970 - Earle Bryan Combs, a native of Pebworth in Owsley County, Kentucky was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Combs began playing baseball as a youngster using tree limbs and balls made of string. As a ...
July 26, 1863 - John Jordon Crittenden, one of Kentucky’s most influential political figures, died. Graduating from the College of William & Mary in 1807, Crittenden became territorial attorney general in Illinois but so...
Born in Mount Pleasant, Florida, Thelma Banks Johnson appeared destined to follow in her parents’ footsteps working in the cotton fields of Georgia. Her parents sent to her school as long as they could but after her eigh...
July 24, 1971 - "Darlin' Harlan," more properly known as the USS Harlan County and named for Harlan County, Kentucky, was launched and commissioned the following April. Over her career the ship routinely deployed to the ...
July 23, 1966 – the only national forest entirely within Kentucky’s boundary was renamed Daniel Boone National Forest. In 1937 about 1,338,214 acres was originally named Cumberland National Forest which led to nearly 30 ...
July 22, 1799 - A constitutional convention convened in Frankfort to draft Kentucky’s second constitution. Kentucky had been admitted to the union in 1792 after seven constitutional conventions sought statehood.
July 21, 1923 - Often cited as the first radio reception inside Mammoth Cave, Fred Harlow (a junior operator for WHAS) W.A. Mivelez (a volunteer assistant from Louisville) and a cave guide conducted an experiment to dete...
July 20, 1847 - the bodies of 28 Kentuckians who died in the Mexican War were reinterred in the Frankfort Cemetery during a ceremony said to have attracted 20,000 spectators. While John C. Breckinridge was the primary sp...
July 19, 1996 - Louisville, Kentucky native Muhammed Ali ended months of speculation and emerged as the last of 12,000 torch-bearing relay runners and had the honor of lighting the Olympic Flame during the opening ceremo...
July 18, 1922 - The nation had 439 commercial radio stations on the air and not a single one was located in Kentucky. Judge Robert Worth Bingham, owner of the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times newspapers, was determin...
July 16, 1816 - the cornerstone of St. Joseph Cathedral, the first cathedral west of the Allegheny Mountains, was placed by Father Benedict Joseph Flaget, the first Bishop of the Diocese of Bardstown. A native of France ...
July 14, 1776 - Ten days after the Continental Congress officially declared Independence from Great Britain, early settlers in Kentucke were also making history. On that Sunday afternoon, Elizabeth and Fanny Calloway, da...
July 13, 1926 - 100 Years Ago Today - Ale-8-One soft drink was introduced by G.L. Wainscott in Winchester, Kentucky. It is the only soft drink invented in Kentucky still in existence. Wainscott began bottling soda water ...
July 12, 1880 - It’s the birthday of Charles Albert Browning, Jr., who was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father was a bricklayer, carpenter and machinist. His uncle was Pete “The Louisville Slugger” Browning whose ...
July 10, 1852 - Twelve days after he died in Washington, D.C., Sen. Henry Clay’s body arrived in Lexington after being toured over 1,200 miles of America. Clay’s coffin was placed on a bier in front of his home, Ashland,...
July 9, 1808 - It’s the birthday of Alexander William Doniphan who was born in Mason County, Kentucky. His father, Joseph Doniphan, was Revolutionary War veteran who settled in Kentucky where he became a well-to-do farm...
July 8, 1896 - Sallie Ward, Kentucky’s most vivacious belle of the 19th century, drew her last breath in her apartment in the fashionable Galt House hotel in Louisville. Born into one of Kentucky’s most aristocratic fami...
July 7, 1908 - It’s the birthday of Harriette Louise Simpson Arnow, a renowned author with deep Kentucky roots. Born in Wayne County, Kentucky, Harriette’s family soon moved to Burnside in Pulaski County where she spent...
July 6, 1802 - Edward West, a Lexington, Kentucky inventor and silversmith, was granted a patent for his steam engine to power a boat. Robert Fulton’s better-known vessel on a larger scale was patented the following ye...
July 4, 1794 - Col. William Price, a Revolutionary War veteran living in Fayette County, Kentucky (on land carved out to become Jessamine County in 1798) held one of the first recorded celebrations of Independence Day we...
July 2, 1960 - The Commonwealth of Kentucky accepted a 525-acre tract of land in Boone County to be developed as a state park to showcase Kentucky’s pre-historic past and the location of one of America’s earliest animal ...
July 1, 1846 - The murder trial of Isaac Lafayette Shelby opened in Lexington. Shelby was the grandson of Kentucky’s first governor, Isaac Shelby, and was defended in court by Henry Clay. Lafayette Shelby was indicted fo...
June 30, 1817 - The cornerstone was placed for Fayette Hospital, the first psychiatric hospital west of the Allegheny Mountains and the second in the United States. From statehood in 1792, Kentucky’s mentally disturbed r...
June 29, 1852 - Kentucky Senator Henry Clay died, setting in motion the greatest display of national mourning America had witnessed to date. Clay died in Room 32 of the National Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington...
June 28, 1935 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky to house the nation’s gold supply after removing gold from circulation in 1933. A site next to the Fort Knox...
June 27, 1906 - The Louisa - Fort Gay Bridge officially opened at 4 p.m., connecting two rivers (Levisa and Tug), two states (Kentucky and West Virginia), two counties (Lawrence County, KY and Wayne County, WV), two town...
June 25, 1903 - Kentucky author John Fox Jr. published THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME, his wildly popular book that became one of the first American novels to sell more than a million copies. Born at Stony Point nea...
June 24, 1778 - 26-year old George Rogers Clark, founder of Louisville, and 175 men “shot the falls” of the Ohio River in canoes during a total eclipse of the sun. Their actions set in motion a secret plan to take contro...
June 22, 1780 - Having led his troops from Detroit and adding an estimated 1,000-1,200 Native Americans to their ranks along their journey, British Capt. Henry Bird invaded Kentucky with a goal of eliminating frontier st...
June 21, 1875 - The United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in honor of President Zachary Taylor who had died nearly 25 years earlier. Taylor's family moved to Kentucky in 1785 when he was 8 months old, first...
June 20, 1854 - The name of the county seat of Perry County, Kentucky was changed from Perry Court House to Hazard. Both the town and the county are named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the Battle of Lake...
June 18, 1803 - Jane Lampton Clemens was born in Columbia in Adair County, Kentucky. Neighboring Casey County was named for her maternal grandfather, William Casey. In 1823, Jane married John Marshall Clemens, a Virgin...
June 17, 1871 - Martin van Buren Bates, a native of Letcher County, Kentucky married Anna Haining Swan at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, drawing thousands of people hoping to attend the wedding. Their notoriety caus...
June 16, 1774 - Kentucky's first settlement was established by James Harrod and named Harrodstown, now known as Harrodsburg. The Pennsylvanian recruited around 37 men to join him in the wilds of Kentucky where they estab...
June 15, 1881 - Mill Springs National Cemetery near Nancy, Kentucky was was officially dedicated. The Pulaski County site was originally a battlefield cemetery created as a result of the Battle of Mill Springs that occur...