Connecticut Trivia & Tidbits - Page 12

Looking for Connecticut trivia? Try our list Connecticut little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The first Mickey Mouse watch was made in Waterbury by the Waterbury Clock Co. in the 1920s, selling for $1.50. The company later re-named itself Timex.

first appeared: 12/15/2002

Though not earthquake prone, Connecticut experienced a quake on May 16, 1791, that the National Earthquake Information Center calls the most severe in the state’s history. The tremor near East Haddam (pop. 8,333) toppled stone walls and chimneys and opened a small fissure in the ground.

first appeared: 12/8/2002

When Denise Matthews of Old Saybrook (pop. 1,962) graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard school in New London in 1985, she become the first woman to graduate at the head of the class of a military academy.

first appeared: 12/1/2002

Woodcutting by early settlers in America took a toll. In 1800, only about 20 percent of the state was forested. Thanks in part to forest reclamation projects, 60 percent is wooded today.

first appeared: 11/24/2002

In Colonial days, towns often acquired names that reminded residents of biblical locations. Connecticut, for example, has Lebanon, Gilead, Hebron, Bethlehem, Bozrah, Sodom, Canaan, and Goshen.

first appeared: 11/17/2002

Emeline Jones (1836-1916), one of Connecticut’s first woman dentists, traveled from town to town with a portable dentist’s chair repairing people’s teeth. Her husband had taught her to drill and fill teeth and, upon his death, she continued the practice.

first appeared: 11/10/2002

It can happen: A 12-pound, softball-size meteorite crashed through the roof of a home in Wethersfield (pop. 26,271) in November 1982, hitting the dining room floor and bouncing into a chair.

first appeared: 11/3/2002

The Mattatuck Drum Band in Waterbury was formed in 1767 and has had continuous membership—under different names—ever since. The band, which calls itself “the oldest band in the land,” was created to provide marching music for two military companies formed at that time for training.

first appeared: 10/27/2002

Yale University was founded in 1701 as a “collegiate school” in Killingworth. It later moved to Saybrook and eventually to New Haven in 1716.

first appeared: 10/20/2002

One of this country’s oldest still-operating railroad depots, Union Station was constructed in Canaan in 1872.

first appeared: 10/13/2002

Dinosaur State Park just south of Hartford was established after a bulldozer operator working on a highway uncovered dinosaur footprints in 1966. Since then, more than 2,000 footprints and fossils have been found.

first appeared: 10/6/2002

The first recorded modern person to set foot on the Antarctic continent was John Davis, a seal hunter out of New Haven, who made a landfall in Antarctica’s Hughes Bay in 1821.

first appeared: 9/29/2002

One of the earliest state automobile speed limits in the country was set here in 1900 at 12 miles per hour.

first appeared: 9/22/2002

The first written constitution in North America and the first of its kind in the world was the Fundamental Orders, created in 1639 by English settlements that united to form the Connecticut Colony—which is why Connecticut calls itself the Constitution State.

first appeared: 9/15/2002

The 1989 movie Glory showed the story of a Massachusetts African-American regiment in the Civil War. Connecticut itself recruited two, the 29th Connecticut and the 30th.

first appeared: 9/8/2002

The Children’s Magazine, the first American magazine exclusively for children, was published in Hartford in 1789.

first appeared: 9/1/2002

P.T. Barnum’s famous midget, Tom Thumb (1838-1883), was born Charles Sherwood Stratton in Bridgeport. During his travels around the world with Barnum, Thumb met such notables as Abraham Lincoln and Queen Victoria.

first appeared: 8/25/2002

Though others have laid claim to the title, one contender for the invention of the hamburger was Louis’ Lunch shop in New Haven. In 1895, owner Louis Lassen ground up some steak he didn’t want to waste and served it between two slices of bread.

first appeared: 8/18/2002

Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, also was the first to use interchangeable parts in manufacturing. He introduced the process in New Haven after receiving a federal contract for 10,000 muskets in 1798.

first appeared: 8/11/2002

Hartford-born Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) patented the vulcanization process for rubber—making it pliable in extremes of weather—in 1844 after accidentally dropping rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove.

first appeared: 8/4/2002

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