Timeline of Kentucky history
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Timeline of Kentucky history
Contents |
[edit] Early History
- Before 1750, Kentucky was populated nearly exclusively by Cherokee, Chickasaw, Shawnee and several other tribes of Native Americans See Pre-Columbian
- April 13, 1750 • Dr. Thomas Walker was the first recorded American of European descent to discover and use coal in Kentucky[1]
[edit] Revolutionary War
- March 10, 1775 • Daniel Boone along with 35 axmen begin to blaze a trail from Fort Chiswell through Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. Financed by the Transylvania Company, the trail eventually came to be known as the Wilderness Road.
- May 27, 1778 *(1778) George Rogers Clark arrives at the Falls of the Ohio and establishes Corn Island settlement.
- August 19, 1782 • The Battle of Blue Licks in what is now Robertson County, was the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War.
[edit] Between the wars
- June 1, 1792 • Kentucky became the fifteenth state to be admitted to the union and Isaac Shelby, a military veteran from Virginia, was elected the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
- December, 1811 through February, 1812 • A series of Earthquakes, some estimated at near 9.0 on the Richter scale, strikes the New Madrid Seismic Zone creating a "Hell on Earth" scenario for Early Kentuckians, both Native and European.
- 1818 • The portion of Kentucky west of the Tennessee river was purchased from the Chickasaw by U.S. President Andrew Jackson, hense the name of this region — The Jackson Purchase.
[edit] Civil War
[edit] Reconstruction period
- May 17, 1875 • The first Kentucky Derby was won by a colt named Aristides ridden by African-American jockey, Oliver Lewis in front of an estimated crowd of 10,000 people.
[edit] Twentieth Century
- January 1937 • A massive flood occurs as the result of snowmelt and record rainfall effecting nearly every Kentucky town and city along the Ohio river, its tributaries and the Mississippi.
- 1954 • A twelve-year-old then known as Cassius Clay approached a Louisville police officer named Joe Martin to report that his bicycle had been stolen. Martin, then the coach of Louisville's city boxing program, tells Cassius that instead of "whooping" the thief, he should learn to box. The next day, the boy takes his first boxing lessons, the first step on a journey that would take him to a legendary boxing career.
- February 28, 1958 • Prestonsburg bus disaster — A school bus traveling on US 23 in Floyd County collides with a wrecker truck and plunges into a flooded Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children drown in what remains the deadliest bus disaster in U.S. history.
- May 28, 1977 • Beverly Hills Supper Club fire — A fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club, a nightclub in Southgate in Campbell County, kills 165 and injures over 200.
- May 14, 1988 • Carrollton bus collision — Larry Mahoney, intoxicated and driving the wrong way on Interstate 71 in Carroll County, hits a converted school bus carrying a youth group from First Assembly of God in Radcliff. The crash and the ensuing fire kill 27, which equals the toll from the Prestonsburg disaster 30 years earlier.
- December 1, 1997 • Heath High School shooting — Michael Carneal, an emotionally troubled freshman at Heath High School in McCracken County, opens fire on a group of his fellow students who were leaving a preschool prayer meeting. Three are killed and five wounded, with one of the wounded left a paraplegic. Carneal is eventually sentenced to three concurrent life sentences plus 120 years.
- August 27, 2006 • Comair Flight 5191 crashes shortly after takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. Of the 50 passengers and crew on board, 49 are killed.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- A History of Kentucky by Thomas D. Clark
- Mulligan, William H., "Interpreting the Civil War at Columbus-Belmont State Park and Sacramento, Kentucky: Two Case Studies", paper presented at "International, Multicultural, Interdisciplinary: Public History Policy and Practice", the 20th Annual Conference of the National Council on Public History, April 16-19, 1998, Austin, Texas
- Secession and the Union in Tennessee and Kentucky: A Comparitive Analysis James Copeland, Walters State Community College
- The Ohio River Flood of 1937 Michael Pitt - University High School, Urbana, Illinois
- Vintage Post Cards of Old Louisville - The Great 1937 Flood
