19 August 1782
On this date in 1782...
A force of 400 Tories, Canadians, Mingo, Mohawk, and Shawnee, ambushed and scattered 182 Kentucky militiamen led by Colonel John Todd and Daniel Boone at the Battle of Blue Licks near present-day Mount Olivet, Kentucky. Boone’s son Israel was captured by the Shawnee and tortured to death. It was considered the worst defeat of frontier militia during the American War for Independence.
- 1814 - British troops defeated American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg and entered Washington, D.C.
- 1861 - The Confederate Congress agreed to an alliance with Missouri’s legitimate state government.
- 1895 - Reformed Texas gunman, gambler, and lawyer, John Wesley Hardin, was shot in the back by off-duty constable Johm Selman in an El Paso, Texas saloon. When asked about the ethics of shooting Hardin in the back, the coroner replied that due to Hardin’s reputation it “was good judgment.”
- 1960 - Francis Gary Powers of Kentucky, an American U-2 pilot, was convicted of espionage in Moscow.
- 1962 - Homero Blancas shot the lowest score in U.S. competitive golf history, a 55, at the Premier Invitational Golf Tournament held in Longview, Texas.
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