The torpedo struck the Dorchester at 12:55 am on February 3, 1943, near the coast of Greenland in the North Atlantic. Within 27 minutes, the ship had disappeared beneath the waves into the cold water. Of the 902 people on board, only 230 survived — the third worst sea disaster of the war. Among the dead were four Army chaplains: Two Protestant ministers, a Jewish rabbi, and a Catholic priest. After the explosion, the four chaplains spread out among the men onboard, calming the frightened, leading men to safety, and handing out life vests. Each eventually gave his life vest to a soldier …

Last week’s column dealt principally with the life of scholar, athlete, and author Horatio Strother. Though born in New York City, Strother spent most of his adolescence and adult life living in Middletown and Higganum, CT. It was in Middletown that young Horatio began to distinguish himself both as an athlete and as a student. A star football player for Woodrow Wilson High School and a state champion in track and field, Strother also developed a keen interest in American history in general and in the Underground Railroad in particular. He pursued his interest in history at UConn and became a…

As a young man, Horatio Strother envisioned the Underground Railroad "as a big train roaring through a long tunnel." But just as Voltaire had said that the "Holy Roman Empire" was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, so too was the "Underground Railroad" neither underground nor a railroad. Instead, Strother came to realize that it was "a widespread and loosely knit network of hideouts and secret routes of escape" for slaves to use to escape bondage in the South during the Antebellum period. Through this network of hideouts, as many as 100,000 slaves escaped to the North and to freedom. One…

It’s difficult to imagine a single person who has had more impact on the development of skiing in the Northeast than Walter Schoenknecht formerly of East Haven. Born in New Haven in 1919, Schoenknecht (pronounced “shawn-connect”) leased a rope tow area known as Brodie Mountain immediately after the war in 1946. After operating Brodie’s rope tow for a year, he returned to his native state and then opened his first ski area — Mohawk Mountain in Cornwall, CT — in the winter of 1947-48. Mohawk is by far Connecticut’s oldest ski area. A snow drought similar to this season occurred during the …

Born Nov. 19, 1831 — 180 years ago this week — in the Western Reserve section of Ohio known as "New Connecticut," James A. Garfield was more than 6 feet tall and weighed about 210 pounds. He was a large, athletic man, especially for his times. Garfield's physical size was matched by the largeness of his character. Generous and kind-hearted by nature, he was beloved and respected by all who knew him. Loyal and self-effacing, he never sought the presidency, but ended up being drafted against his will as a compromise candidate by the hopelessly deadlocked delegates of the Republican National …

[Correction: The Hindenburg's final voyage was in May 1937. The date has been corrected in the last paragraph.] My mother was 9 years old in 1928 when she saw her first zeppelin from the schoolyard at Warehouse Point Elementary School in East Windsor. It was Germany’s famous Graf Zeppelin, and it was headed south down the Connecticut River on its way to a mooring point at the Lakehurst, NJ, Naval Station. Zeppelin pilots used the river as a navigational guidepost en route to Lakehurst via New York City. The airship usually flew at an altitude of 500 to 700 feet over the state, so its graceful…