Amazing Tales About History

Stonewalls. Beautiful rows of rocks piled in lines along fields or through the woods. Yet, the 240,000 miles of New England stonewalls hide a more scientific purpose – namely, classifying them in ways similar to wetlands to make future land use decisions.

More than 2 dozen American ships sunk in one night. The British did it during the War of 1812 near Long Island Sound. It was the worst loss of ships in a single military event, until Pearl Harbor.

The hanging of witches started in Connecticut in the 1600s. Decades later, the more famous Salem Witch Trials occurred. At the beginning, nearly a dozen women and men were hanged for witchcraft, until young Colony Governor John Winthrop used his political expertise to get the state to end executions entirely.

The "Old Woodbury Path" connected some of America's earliest farms with one of its earliest and nearly forgotten ports. Most of it is paved over now, but if you know where to look, parts of this 350-year-old cart path can still be hiked.

Ivory. It meant quality, class, and refinement. And, it put the town of Ivorytown on the map. That's where 90% of the material was imported into the U.S. and manufactured into piano keys, combs and buttons, taking advantage of huge demand for its smooth, glassy touch.

American soldiers held in German during WW II made many prison escapes largely thanks to a top-secret project: Post Office Box 1142. Coded info and hidden devices were mailed to prisoners in ingenious ways that got past prison guards.

About 100 years ago, a town's top leader was shot to death in his Town Hall office. Ray Gilliard telephoned the operator, said he had been shot, described his assailants, and asked for police and a doctor to be dispatched. Then, the line went dead. The investigation's outcome shocked everyone.

The "father of robotics," Joseph Engelberger, created the very first industrial robot in the 1980s. It was installed on a car manufacturing production line. His ingenuity led to other advances, including a robot that delivered food trays from a hospital kitchen to a patient's bedside.

In 1987, a novel construction technique failed, causing a multi-story concrete structure to collapse onto and kill 28 workers. Each floor fell, pancake style, on top of the one below it until the tons of concrete from the L'Ambiance apartment building project trapped the crew. Thomas Bucci was the Mayor who had to manage the disaster.

It was a complete mismatch that ended in a Revolutionary War slaughter. 1,600 British soldiers attacked Fort Griswold, where just 165 Patriot defenders gave fight. They surrendered, but the British killed them anyway in a battle directed by Benedict Arnold.

It was a difficult murder to solve. The victim's body was not in his house, which had been burned to the ground. The suspect was especially adept at deflecting attention. While he didn't like the victim, he did love a woman - and the two emotions were connected to the crime.

If you were a candidate for military service in the Civil War, and you saw Dr. Josiah Beckwith, odds are you would get a medical exemption. Why did more than 90% of Beckwith's patients end up ducking the draft?

Just because land is forested or undeveloped doesn't mean it's set-aside "open space." Many landowners are just waiting for the right time to sell to developers. The battle to commit enough open space land for future generations to enjoy is behind schedule.

Noah Webster doesn't command much attention as a founding father. Yet, he created the first American dictionary and made contributions to education that remain to this day. He's the father of U.S. copyright law and founder of New York’s first daily newspaper.

At one point, Connecticut had five zoos. Now, it's just has one accredited facility: Beardsley Zoo. This dwindling resource keeps highly endangered species alive and director Gregg Dancho says its contributions are generally unappreciated by society.

1,500 victims drowned on the Titanic. William Sloper survived. He escaped on an a “women and children only” lifeboat. One reporter claimed he got in it by wearing a dress. What was the truth?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the pilot of a small plane you were riding in died in mid-flight? On Easter Sunday, 2009, the pilot of a twin-engine plane out of Florida suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving a father, his wife, and two daughters alone in the plane. A CT flight instructor tried to talk him down.

Is a "trading post" a "settlement?" This seemingly straightforward question is at the heart of a 400-year-old argument as to whether Windsor or Wethersfield was the first town settled by the English in Connecticut.

In part two of this two-part series, we learn the fate of the 41-member submarine crew, trapped under Long Island Sound with flooded compartments, no radio onboard, deadly chlorine gas filling the vessel, and freezing water temperatures.

In 1921, a submarine set sail in Long Island Sound for the New London Naval Base. In part one of this two-part series, we hear how the 41-member crew faced multiple, spellbinding challenges when the vessel sank, with no radio onboard.

This ghost story has dozens of witnesses. The well publicized "Lindley Street Poltergeist" saw thousands of people gathering nightly outside the house to witness supernatural activities seen by police and firefighters - floating refrigerators, knives flying through the air, and even a talking cat.

Instead of New York City, imagine the United Nations in Greenwich, CT. It was the search committee's first choice. The ensuing community battle gave rise to the slogan "NIMBY": not in my backyard. The Rockefeller and Bush political dynasties also got involved.

William Franklin was the son of famous founding father Ben Franklin. He was also the Governor of New Jersey, representing the British Crown. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Patriot forces captured William and imprisoned him. How did Ben respond?

The sounds have been described as eerie, dreadful, and fearful, and they've been heard for centuries. The so-called "Moodus noises" have come to define the small village where the sounds come from, and intriguing legends have grown around them.

Farmer Elmer Bitgood drank 10 gallons of milk at lunchtime to wash down several pounds of hamburger. His biceps were 20 inches around. Newspapers nationwide in the 1920s dubbed him the strongest man in the world, for lifting 2,000 pounds.