Bellefontaine

December 31, 1891 - Bellefontaine has the dubious distinction of having the oldest concrete street in the U.S., which is Court Street at the Logan County Courthouse. It was poured on this day. The town also has the shortest concrete street, McKinley Street, which is eight-feet long and was poured in front of the courthouse hitching posts. Happy New Years Bellefontaine!
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LeBron James

December 30, 1984 – LeBron James, nicknamed King James, is born in Akron. He is drafted out of high school to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers and will eventually sign a $90 million endorsement deal with Nike. His biggest achievement: a gold medal in the 2008 Olympic games.

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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE December 29, 1876 – Only 87 of 159 passengers survive the Ashtabula train disaster when a bridge over Ashtabula creek collapses. Dozens die from the coal stove fire. Railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt dies within a week from the horror of it all.
December 29, 1925 - Paul B. "Pete" Dye is born in Urbana. He would help tend his father's 9-hole course and then go on to become the world's greatest designer of golf courses.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE December 28, 1869 – William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon patents chewing gum and American high school girls have never been the same since. December 28, 1978 – Ohio State University football coach Woody Hayes steps out onto the field and punches Clemson defensive lineman Charlie Bauman after the middle guard intercepts a pass and heads down the sideline near the Buckeye bench. Hayes is fired.
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World’s Largest Rocking Chair

Only a Buckeye would build a chair this big. What must be the World’s Largest Rocking Chair with a seat at 8-feet high beckons weary, Bunyanesque travelers at 1933 Hwy 45, Austinburg.
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Miami University

The campus at Miami University, known as the Cradle of Coaches and alma mater of Paul Brown, is quiet today with all the students home for the holiday break.
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Brent Mason

December 24, 1967 – Now 8, Brent Mason of Van Wert, teaches himself to play guitar by ear - a Christmas carole, perhaps. Mason is discovered by Chet Atkins and will perform with George Strait, Alan Jackson, Shania Twain and Neil Diamond. His guitar is heard on commercials for Sears, Budweiser and Betty Crocker, and Mason wins 14 awards as guitarist of the year from the Academy of Country Music.
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Tiny chapel

If it’s not the world’s smallest church, it ought to be. This tiny chapel on Ohio County Road 63 in Coolville between Athens and Belpre off Ohio 50 is about the same size as a backyard dollhouse.
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Hank Williams

December 22, 1948 – With Christmas bearing down on them, Hank Williams and his wife, Audrey, who was pregnant with Hank Jr., head to Cincinnati to the former Herzog studios at 811 Race St. downtown to record There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight, Lovesick Blues, I Heard My Mother Praying for Me and Lost on the River with Audrey. Lovesick Blues would pave the way for Williams’ debut at the Grand Old Opry and make him a country music icon.
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Archie Griffin

December 21, 1972 – This football season, OSU running back Archie Griffin, a Columbus native, is enjoying an incredible 8.9 yard average carry. Griffin would go on to become the only back-to-back Heisman Trophy winner in history.
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Fascinating Ohio

December 20, 1999 – Who goes fishing in the dead of winter? Bud Clute boats out onto Lake Erie. The Chardon resident catches a 17.33-pound, 36-inch burbot for a state record.
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Robert Urich

December 19, 1946 – The late Robert Urich, noted for his TV role in Spencer for Hire, Vega$ and 18 other shows, is born in Steubenville.
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Pure Prairie League

December 18, 1974 – Pure Prairie League, a country-rock group born in Waverly in 1969, features Craig Fuller. The group heads into the studio to record its third album. Two Lane Highway was written by Cincinnatian Larry Goshorn, who still performs as the Goshorn Brothers. The Goshorns' departure from the group opened the door for Vince Gill, who would go on to become an American country music legend.
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Orville and Wilbur Wright

December 17, 1903 - Orville Wright climbs into a wood and canvas contraption at Kitty Hawk, N.C., and what follows changes the world forever: 12 seconds and 120 feet of controlled, powered flight.
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Christmas gift to Chillicothe

December 16, 1987 - John Mellencamp, a member of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, plays the first of two free shows as a “Christmas gift” to Chillicothe. Mellencamp’s anthem “Small Town” led producer and fan Chip Arlidge at Chillicothe's WCFB-FM to chase Mellencamp for the shows for nearly two years. "And I ain't even done with the night....."
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Alan Freed

December 15, 1921 – Alan Freed is born in Windber, Pa., but the family moves to Salem, Ohio, where he graduates from Salem High School. Freed creates a band – the Sultans of Swing – takes an interest in radio and becomes a DJ at WKBN in Youngstown and WAKR in Akron. Thanks to Cleveland record store owner Leo Mintz, he lands at WJW in Cleveland and hosts a late-night R&B show. Rock and roll is born!
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Mothman

December 14, 1967 – Nobody on this morning notices the Silver Bridge between Kanauga and Point Pleasant, W.Va., is in danger of collapsing but people for the past year have noticed a mysterious seven-foot-tall moth man flying around town, particularly on this night. The bridge collapses within 24 hours. A statue to Mothman is across the river in Point Pleasant.
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Mrs. Jones

December 13, 1972 - Me and Mrs. Jones by soul crooner Billy Paul is atop the charts as a No. 1 single. Written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the song was written after they saw somebody they knew meeting Mrs. Jones, who was from Yellow Springs, in a café they both frequented…”We got a thannnnng, going on…..”
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Survivor

December 12, 2004 – Chris Daugherty, a soft-spoken construction worker and Ohio Department of Transportation crewman from West Jefferson, wins $1 million on the reality TV show Survivor: Vanuatu. His secret? Be the nicest guy.
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Terri Garr

December 11, 1946 – Actress Terri Garr is born in Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland. A graduate of Magnificat High School in Rocky River, Garr danced in several Elvis Presley movies, was on The Andy Griffith Show and received an Academy Award nomination for Tootsie. In October 2002, Garr announced that she had multiple sclerosis and became a spokesperson for research for that terrible disease.

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Otis Redding

December 10, 1967 – Otis Redding leaves Cleveland bound for Madison, Wisc. He would never make it. His plane crashes, and all on board die.
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Eddie George

December 9, 1995 – Running back Eddie George wins the 61st Heisman Trophy for his time on the gridiron at Ohio State University. In this 1995 season, he rushed for a school record 1,927 yards and 24 touchdowns to give him an incredible career average of 152.2 yards per game.
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Fascinating Ohio

Make plans to enjoy a seasonal three-course holiday dinner amid the candlelight of the Patterson Homestead in Dayton. Call (937) 293-2841 for reservations at the restored house/museum.
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Oooops

December 7, 1972 – Lucille Perk, wife of Cleveland mayor Ralph Perk, spurns an invitation to attend a dinner at the White House with President Richard M. Nixon because she didn’t really want to go. So she told her staff to tell the White House staff that it was her bowling night. Oooops. The national media have a field day with that one.
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Hooks

Dec. 6, 1866 – Ernest is Pflueger born. His father, E.A. Pflueger. created fishing lures at night at the kitchen table above his Howard St. grocery store. Thanks to Ernest, Akron would become a fishing lure mecca, and by 1916 would produce more fishing hooks than anyplace else on earth.
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George Armstrong Custer

Dec. 5, 1839 – New Rumley – George Armstrong Custer is born in this eastern Ohio hamlet. A marker and statue dedicated to Custer, who graduated last in his class at West Point and would die with two brothers at Little Big Horn, is along Ohio 646 on the west side of town.
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Only the lonely

Dec. 4, 1988 – Roy Orbison’s last concert occurs in Akron in the Civic Theater two days before his death. Under the ceiling of twinkling stars and puffy clouds, about 2,000 hear his soaring falsetto at the sold-out Sunday night show: "Only the lonely..."
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The fastest man alive

Dec. 3, 2007 – Summit County near Akron in Springfield - Art Arfons dies. Once the fastest man alive, he is buried with wrenches in his hands, a J79 jet operating manual and a jar of his beloved Bonneville salt at his side. He once tested jets by anchoring them to trees in his backyard, which must have annoyed the neighbors terribly.
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John Brown

Dec. 2, 1959 – Akron church bells peal for former Hudson resident and fervent abolitionist John Brown. Brown once herded sheep through what is now downtown Akron while ruminating on the evils of slavery. He raided a federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, W. Va., was captured by Robert E. Lee and hanged.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE December 1, 1962 - Bobby Knight, loses the first game he coaches when his JV Black Tigers of Cuyahoga Falls fall 29-30. The loss to the Theodore Roosevelt JV Rough Riders comes on a shot at the buzzer. Knight shakes it off to become the winningest coach in NCAA history. Dec. 1, 1982 – Barney Freeman of Kansas fishes the Huron River and lands a 13.63-pound Coho Salmon that is 34 ¾ inches long and a state record.
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Mark Lewis

November 30, 1969 – Reds fans loved him. Indians fans, too. Mark Lewis is born in Hamilton. His major league baseball career would land him on six teams: the Cleveland Indians, the Cincinnati Reds, the Detroit Tigers, the San Francisco Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Baltimore Orioles before his career ends at age 31. He retires to his Hamilton hometown.
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Roger Troutman

November 29, 1951 – Electrofunkster Roger Troutman is born in Hamilton. He would pioneer the voice-altering talkbox and vocoder as lead singer of Zapp, co-write More Bounce to the Ounce and be heavily sampled by West Coast rappers, including Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre. He died at 47 from gunshot wounds after being shot by his brother, Larry, who then committed suicide.
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Dahmer

November 28, 1994 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who was raised in Bath and was responsible for killing 17 men and boys, is murdered himself by a fellow inmate at Columbia Correction Institute in Wisconsin. Dahmer was serving a 936-year prison sentence.
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Old Man Time

Pete Toth has sculpted Indian heads with his chain saw in dozens of states but his first came in Akron at Sand Run Park on Ohio 18, east of I-77 at Fairlawn Grade School. Maybe today it will have a dusting of snow on it and look like Old Man Time.
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Train Kept A-Rollin

November 26, 1958 – Musician and band leader Tiny Bradshaw, who was born in Youngstown, dies in Cincinnati at the age of 53. His “Train Kept A-Rollin” in 1951 was later covered by the Yardbirds in 1965 and Aerosmith in 1974.
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Ralph Chilton

November 25, 1931 – Ralph Chilton figures that ice is always nice but tiny cubes would be nicest of all. A Dayton resident, he receives patent for a contraption that removes ice cubes from freezer trays.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE November 24, 1864 – William Copelan is born in Cincinnati. Copelan would become a police chief of Cincinnati and be the last chief to serve who started his career by patrolling on horseback. November 24, 2004 – The 14.04-pound 30 1/8 inch long saugeye caught by Roger Sizemore of Orient in Antrim Lake is a state record.

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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE November 23, 1999 – Brunswick’s Tom Haberman takes a chilly fishing trip on Lake Erie and comes home with a 16.19 pound, 33-inch-long Walleye for a state record. November 23, 1968 – Ohio State University blows out Michigan 50-14. Coach Woody Hayes goes for a two-point conversion after a late-game TD. When asked why Hayes replies: “Because I couldn’t go for three.”
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The Inscription Rock State Memorial

The Inscription Rock State Memorial on Kelleys Island has hundreds of etchings from pre-historic Native Americans. It can be a foreboding place in November and that offers a glimpse of the hardship they encountered.
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Fascinating Ohio

November 21, 2007: A federal appeals court finds in favor of Steve Popovich, founder of Cleveland International Records, in his battle with Sony/BMG over removing his label’s name from Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” album. Popovich’s company also released songs by Southside Johnny, Ronnie Spector and several polka bands.
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Joe Walsh

November 20, 1947 – Joe Walsh is born in Oklahoma but moves to Columbus. After stints in New Jersey and New York City, Walsh heads to Kent State University to create power rock trio The James Gang. His brilliant guitarwork leads to a gig with the Eagles. Walsh performed the national anthem at game four of the World Series of 1995 and Rocky Mountain Way follows every Colorado Rockies win. His favorite guitar? A 1959 Gibson Les Paul.
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World’s Largest Wooden Horse and Buggy

The World’s Largest Wooden Horse and Buggy – probably the world’s only large wooden horse and buggy – seems to roll through the Ohio farmland outside Mesopotania at 8719 State Route 534 northwest of Warren.
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Fascinating Ohio

When Nome, Alaska, needed diphtheria serum in 1925, a dogsled team led by Balto braved 70 mph wind and -60 degrees to get it there. But Balto the Wonderdog ended up with a broke owner in Los Angeles. Cleveland schoolkids donated pennies and raised $2,000 to buy Balto. After his death in 1933, Balto was displayed at the Cleveland history museum. A Balto statue is in Central Park in New York City.
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Mary of Guadalupe

It’s not the world’s largest statue of Mary but it’s pretty daggone big. Marvel at 50-foot Mary of Guadalupe in Windsor in extreme northeast Ohio. Get to it on Ireland Road, which runs north-south between US 6 and Hwy 86. The radiant coils of wire on her back add technical appeal. Don’t visit during a lightning storm.
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America’s forgotten presidents

They are America’s forgotten presidents, that is, presidents who toiled under the Articles of Confederation, which predates the Constitution. Find out more about John Hanson, Elias Boudinot, Thomas Miffin, Richard Henry Lee, John Hancock, Nathaniel Gorham, Arthur St. Clair, and Cyrus Griffen at the One and Only Presidential Museum, 6585 Howard Rd, Williamsfield.
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Chrissie Hynde

November 15, 1994 – Akronite Chrissie Hynde sings Luck be a Lady with Frank Sinatra on his Duet II album produced by Phil Ramone. A girl from Ohio with great pipes and big dreams achieves yet another: harmonizing for music lovers forever with the greatest crooner of all time.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE November 14, 1895 – Frank “The Fence” Lausche, born in Cleveland, becomes a minor league baseball player but gives it up for law school and politics. He becomes the only five-term governor in Ohio history. November 14, 1856 - Mark Twain, 19, writes a letter to his mother in Hannibal that he is living in Cincinnati, has a job as a printer and that things are fine.
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John Hunt Morgan

November 13, 1863 – John Hunt Morgan and some followers tunnel out of a jail cell in the Ohio Penitentiary to an airshaft. They return to their cells, wait a week, fashion a rope from prison uniforms and reach the prison yard. Morgan uses $1,000 smuggled in a Bible from his sister to buy a train ticket to Cincinnati, which leads to an escape to Kentucky.
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Alliance

Alliance is the only town in America with a Main Street that is a dead end on both ends.
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The Twist

November 11, 1958: Celebrating a renewed contract with powerhouse R&B label King Records, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters go into King’s Cincinnati studio and record an upbeat tune called The Twist. Though Ballard’s original version eventually becomes a modest hit, it is left to Chubby Checker to cover it and create the greatest dance tune of all time.
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Glen Buxton

November 10, 1947 – Glen Buxton (dies Oct. 19, 1997) is born in Akron but moves to Arizona where he creates a band called the Earwigs. Eventually landing with Alice Cooper’s band, Buxton is credited as lead guitarist for Cooper and co-writes School’s Out, I’m Eighteen and Elected. Rolling Stone named him one of the top 100 guitarists of all time. He wrote Eighteen in a backroom of the Ludlow Garage in Cincinnati.
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Great Lakes Hurricane

November 9, 1913 – Called the Great Lakes Hurricane, a storm blows in from the north with unsurpassed power. Some 235 crewmen lose their lives as 12 commercial ships go down. Winds hit 79 mph in Cleveland.
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Rick Steiner

November 8, 1946 - Rick Steiner is born in North Avondale in Cincinnati. Steiner sells T-shirts on the carnival circuit, becomes a world champion poker player and then, with a lifelong pal, pluck and luck, produces an amazing string of Broadway hits: Big River, Into the Woods, A Secret Garden, The Producers, Chicago, The Wedding Singer, Smokey Joe’s Café, Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray and Jersey Boys.
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Dean Jagger

November 7, 1903 - Dean Jagger, star of “Twelve O’Clock High” who won both the Academy Award and an Emmy for his work, is born near Columbus Grove in Putnam County.

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Gorden Brisker

November 6, 1937 – The late Gorden Brisker is born in Cincinnati, attends the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where he becomes one of the top tenor saxophonists in the nation and plays extensively with Bill Berry and Woody Herman.
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Leonard Franklin Slye

Nov. 5, 1911 – Leonard Franklin Slye is born in Cincinnati and grows up in a house demolished to make way for Riverfront Stadium and now Great American Ball Park. His family soon moved to Portsmouth and eventually wound up in California during the Great Depression. After four failed years as a singer, Rogers finally gets a hit: Tumbling Tumbleweeds and he becomes the justice-seeking singing cowboy Roy Rogers.
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Fascinating Ohio

November 4, 1997 – As Elton John’s Candle in the Wind tribute to Lady Di rolls through the charts, a new drummer joins the band – John Mahon from Canton.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE November 3, 1865 – The nation’s 29th president, Warren G. Harding, is born in Marion. Harding's good looks led GOP bosses to believe he would appeal to women voters, who were voting for the first time in 1920. November 3, 1926 - Raised in poverty and a self-taught child sharp shooter to feed her siblings, Annie Oakley finds fortune and fame thanks to Buffalo Bill. She dies on this day and is buried in Greenville.
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Fascinating Ohio

November 2 - Akronite Bobby Neuwirth now of Greenwich Village inspires Bob Dylan in 1961 with his banjo picking: “Like Kerouac immortalized Neal Cassady, somebody should have immortalized Neuwirth…You had to brace yourself when you talked to him.” Neuwirth tells Dylan he's headed home to put storm windows up for his parents. Dylan used to do that, too, but not this year. Destiny has other plans for Bob Dylan.
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The Afghan Whigs

Nov. 1, 1986 – The night after Halloween, University of Cincinnati student Greg Dulli and Ohio University student Rick McCollum, who met in a jail cell in Athens on Halloween night, agree to form a rock and roll band: The Afghan Whigs.
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Akron’s Civic Theater

October 31, 2002- Akron’s Civic Theater reopens after a $23 million restoration that returns it to its former glory. The theater is the first in the nation to be built with sound equipment for talking movies. It has a night sky of twinkling stars and moving clouds as well as stunning Moorish and Mediterranean architecture.

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World’s largest milkshake

October 30, 1989 – Smith Dairy in Orrville makes the world’s largest milkshake at 1,575 gallons.
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John Glenn

October 29, 1998 – Buckeye Sen. John Glenn returns to space on the shuttle Discovery from a nine-day mission that included tests on the impact of space on aging.

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Jerome Dillon

October 28, 2005 – After a show at the Hollywood Bowl, drummer Jerome Dillon, a 1987 graduate of Northland High School in Columbus - Dwight Yoakam's school - quits Nine Inch Nails. He formerly played with Howlin’ Maggie on their Honeysuckle Strange album.
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Sarah Jessica Parker

October 27, 1973 – An eight-year-old girl hears destiny whisper as she heads to school in Cincinnati at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts. Living just above poverty, the girl finds her voice onstage at the downtown school. Sarah Jessica Parker has the pipes and thrives in the footlights, so her family heads to Broadway where she wins the role of Annie. The sun'll come out tomorrow....
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Bootsy Collins

October 26, 1951 – No. 1 funk soul brother Bootsy Collins is born in Cincinnati. His first bass guitar was a restrung electric guitar bought from Sears. James Brown let 17-year-old Bootsy into his band but would not let that converted guitar on stage. Bootsy would transform American funk as a member of the Original J.B.s, Parliament –Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band.
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The Heisman

October 25, 1869 – John W. Heisman is born in Cleveland. Heisman, who would become the head coach of football teams at Oberlin College in Oberlin, the University of Akron, Clemson, Rice, Georgia Tech and University of Pennsylvania, advocated legalization of the forward pass and was the first coach to have pulling guards lead sweeps. The Heisman trophy, given annually to the top collegiate player, is named for him.
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7,000 Ohioans

October 24 - About 7,000 Ohioans died in the Civil War. Say a prayer for them on this fall day.
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Dwight Yoakam

October 23, 2007 – Country music and film star Dwight Yoakam, who was the son of a gas station owner in Pikeville, Ky., moves to Columbus, where he graduates from Northland High School. He achieves international fame as an actor and with his Bakersfield Honky Tonk style. His Dwight Sings Buck – a Buck Owen tribute album – was released on this date. How big is Yoakam? Johnny Cash said he was his favorite country singer.
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Stiv Bators

October 22, 1949 – Steven John Bators is born in Youngstown, later changes his name to Stiv Bators and creates bands like the Dead Boys, the Lords of the New Church and The Wanderers. A regular performer at NYC's club CBGB, he died in London in the summer of 1990 when he was struck by a taxi. His ashes were spread over the Paris grave of the Doors’ Jim Morrison. Stiv's power move? Stick his head into the kick drum during a song.
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Peter Frampton

October 21 – Guitar slinger Peter Frampton picked up his mail today at his home in Indian Hill near Cincinnati. Hum a few bars of "I want youuuuu to show me the way....Everyday...."
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Deadly gale

October 20, 1916 – Hurricane-force winds blow up from Alabama and pick up energy off Lake Erie. The deadly gale sinks three ships including the James B. Colgate near Ashtabula, which was fully loaded with coal, and the Merida, bound for Buffalo with a load of iron ore. The storm kills 58 crewmen on those ships and others as it roars across the lake.
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The world’s oldest traffic light

October 19 – The world’s oldest traffic light is in the very strange but appealing Small Town Museum in Ashville at 34 Long St. George Jetson would have loved this light! Call 740-983-9864 for info.
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The Coyne Incident

October 18, 1973 – An Army Reserve helicopter crew of four spots a gray cigar-shaped aircraft with unusual lights and maneuvers while flying at night near Mansfield on a Columbus to Cleveland trip. The UFO approached on a collision course before pulling up to beam a green light at the helicopter. The close encounter is now known as the Coyne Incident and remains one of the most reliable and mysterious sightings of a UFO.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE October 17, 1914: Jerry Siegel is born. An artist and storyteller, he attends Glenville High School in Cleveland, befriends Joel Shuster and together they create the comic book character named Superman. The story of a bullet-proof man is created after Siegel’s father is killed in a store robbery. October 17, 1894 – The Ohio National Guard kills five would-be lynchers in Washington Courthouse while rescuing a black man.
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The McCoys

October 16, 1965 – Two weeks after Hang on Sloopy hits No. 1, The McCoys out of Dayton, featuring 17-year-old lead singer/guitarist Rick Derringer - who would go onto a successful career as a solo artist - simply cannot believe their band's good fortune. The song knocked Yesterday by the Beatles out of the top spot on the charts.
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Frank Lloyd Wright

October 15, 2005: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s only Prairie Style home in Ohio, Springfield’s Westcott House, 1340 E High St., opens to the public after a five-year restoration. The house was built for a prominent family in 1908, but had fallen on hard times – becoming a multi-unit apartment building – before the renovation. Call 937-327-9291 for tour information. Reservations are suggested.
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Ohio road trip

Nothing says autumn like an Ohio road trip, perhaps to the National Museum of Cambridge Glass at 136 South Ninth Street from April through October. Check out the incredible swans and tableware.
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The Judge

October 13, 1813 – Calvin L. Noble, later called “The Judge,” is born in Trumbull County. He founded a Democratic newspaper in Cleveland and because the type was too wide for his display headline title, he left out a letter and changed forever the spelling of “Cleaveland” to “Cleveland.” Cleaveland Rocks!
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Fascinating Ohio

October 12, 1802 – Maybe it was on this fall day, maybe on another, but in 1804 Belmont County’s John Vandevanter is paid $3 for a panther hide.
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Ring-necked pheasants

October 11, 1919 - Autumn was in full blaze across the Ohio landscape when the state begins its annual release of 25,000 ring-necked pheasants. Originally imported from China, about five million birds would be released in the program. By 1976, more than 98 percent of that population would be gone.
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Fascinating Ohio

October 10, 1996 – Michael Agganis moves the Akron-Canton Indians to Akron’s $32 million ballpark. He wants them named the Akron Blast, to honor the city’s contribution to the space industry - the most prominent was of astronaut Judy Resnick, who died in the Challenger shuttle. Even worse? Agganis wants a cat mascot Kaboom. Finally, a citywide contest offers the Aeros and a mascot named Orbit.
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Hang on Sloopy

October 9, 1965 – With Hang on Sloopy at No. 1 on the charts, the Ohio State University band plays the song for the first but not the last time thanks to band member John Tatgenhorst. He had to convince his band director to work it in. The crowd goes wild and the song has been played during games ever since with fans singing along loudly and making letters with their arms during a bridge in the chorus: O - H - I - O.
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE October 8, 1950 – Robert “Kool” Bell is born in Youngstown. The bassist and singer would lead the funk, soul, disco and R&B group Kool and the Gang to global fame. October 8, 1965 - William Henry Hope, stone mason and father of Bob Hope, has a bridge named in his honor: the Carnegie Avenue bridge linking downtown Cleveland to the West Side. The art deco bridge joins the National Register of Historic Places.
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Turbojet Green Monster

October 7, 1964 – Akronite and Springfield Township resident Art Arfons, the “junkyard genius of the jetset” drives his turbojet Green Monster to a world land-speed record of 434.356 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The Monster was, essentially, a frame, four tires, a chassis, a seat and a jet engine.
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Contemporary Arts Center

October 6, 1990 - In a resounding blow to a conservative sheriff trying to enforce his standards on a community, a Cincinnati jury acquitted the Contemporary Arts Center art museum and its director, Dennis Barrie, of obscenity charges in connection with an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photos. The courtroom erupted in shouts and cheers when the verdict was announced.
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Maya Lin

October 5, 1959 – Maya Lin, born in Athens, wins a commission to create a Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is unveiled November 13, 1982 and bears the names of fallen soldiers from the conflict. The memorial becomes an instant Mecca for Americans who fought in the conflict.
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R.W. Apple, Jr.

October 4, 2006 – Hudson native, world traveler and New York Times journalist R.W. Apple, Jr., 71, dies from complications of thoracic cancer. He was a lifelong newshound and gourmand.
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Fascinating Ohio

October 3, 1988 – Chris Campbell of Dayton fishes Lyre Lake and lands a freshwater shark: a 22.38 pound, 43-inch long Northern Pike. It's a state record.
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Elizabeth Degenhart Glass Art Day

October 2, 1975 – Ohio declares Elizabeth Degenhart Glass Art Day to honor the 4,000 glass paperweights at the Degenhart Paperweight Museum - behind a gas station in Cambridge at 65323 Highland Hills Rd. Check out the gear-shift-knob paperweight turned down by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's assistant secretary in 1933, and don’t miss three glass gravesite markers – a trend that never took off but remains a good idea.
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World Series fix

October 1, 1919 – Players on the Chicago White Sox fix the World Series with the Cincinnati Reds by conspiring to lose. George M. Cohan, the Broadway showman, was in the stands at Redland Field today. He lost a bundle on the White Sox, too.
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Nobody But Me

September 30, 1968 – The Human Beinz, a garage band from Youngstown, find that their version of Nobody But Me, a cover of a 1963 Isley Brothers song, rips into the Billboard Top 10. The word “No” is spoken over 100 times and “Nobody” uttered 46 times.
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Jack Nicklaus

September 29, 1960 - Jack Nicklaus, 20, Upper Arlington, shoots 67 on the way to a 269 at the World Amateur Team Championship at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia. His 66-67-68-68 remains a record as the U.S. team wins by 42 strokes. A junior in college and two months newlywed, Nicklaus remembered it as "one of the finest straight 72 holes I’ve played.” He won individual honors by 13 strokes.
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Gum globs

Some customers of The Maid-Rite Sandwich Shop in Greenville got a notion a few years back, or maybe longer, to dump their chewing gum before they dug into the restaurant’s tasty burgers. Hmmm, this wall looks like a good place to stick it. Today, two entire brick walls, the side and the front, at the shop are covered with gum globs. Ain’t that America?
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Benjamin Orzechowski

September 27, 2000 – Benjamin Orzechowski, a Lakewood and Parma resident as well as Valley Forge High School dropout, has his last performance in Anchorage, Alaska. Known as Ben Orr and a bassist, he was a founding member of The Cars after meeting Ric Ocasek in Columbus in the early 1970s. Orzechowski would die from pancreatic cancer six days after this show.
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Toledo Museum of Art

September 26, 1982: The Toledo Museum of Art opens perhaps its most important exhibition ever, “El Greco of Toledo,” featuring 60 rarely traveled paintings – most from Spanish museums – of the great painter who settled in and became associated with Toledo, Spain. Toledo was one of just three American museums to display it.

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The Isley Brothers

Sept. 25, 1971 - The Isley Brothers, a soul act from the Cincinnati neighborhoods of South Cumminsville and Lincoln Heights with Top 40 hits since 1959’s “Shout,” release a version of Neil Young’s “Ohio” – about the 1970 Kent State massacre – on their “Givin’ It Back” album. The powerful 9:12 minute version is coupled with Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun.”
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Fascinating Ohio

September 24, 2004 - Andy Janoski of Chagrin Falls hooks a state record 3.06 pound pink salmon that is 20 1/8 inches long from Conneaut Creek near Lake Erie.
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Layzie Bone

September 23, 1975 – Steven Howse is born, grows up in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, changes his name to Layzie Bone and becomes a founding member of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Their ghetto-hip-hop goes all the way to Los Angeles to a Grammy award.

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Campbell Hill

Campbell Hill at 1,550 feet above sea level in tiny Bellefontaine is the highest spot between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. Find the hill at The Hi Point Career Center east of Bellfontaine on Ohio 540.
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West Side Market

The best selection of fresh food anywhere in the state is at the West Side Market, 1995 W. 25th St., in Cleveland, where Old-World vendors sell foods that appeal to more than two dozen nationalities.
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Wild Cherry

September 20, 1976 - Advice given to Mingo Junction native Bob Parissi at a disco club in Pittsburgh – “Play that funky music, white boy” – becomes the hook for a song recorded in Cleveland by Parissi’s group, Wild Cherry. The song hits No. 1 on this autumn day. Parissi had written the lyrics on the back of a waitress’s order pad only months before, and now he has a song that will be played forever at suburban parties of Baby Boomers.
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Carew Tower

Take a trip to the top of the Carew Tower in Cincinnati for stunning views of Kentucky and the Ohio River basin.
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Peg Entwhistle

September 18, 1932 – Actress Peg Entwhistle, 24, ends it all by leaping from the H of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. Her ashes are near the grave of her father in Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, a suburb of Cincinnati. A letter from the Beverly Hills Playhouse mailed the day before she jumped and received the day after, offered her a lead role in a stage production. That character committed suicide.
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Terminal Tower

The view from the Terminal Tower in Cleveland is incredible. At 52 stories and with a clear day, expect to see more than 30 miles.
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Slovenian Sausage Festival

This date is a moving target in September but kielbasa lovers should not miss the Slovenian Sausage Festival, a benefit event for the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame and Museum. Favorite polka bands and sausage shops fill SNPJ Farm in Kirtland with eight hours of non-stop music and munching.
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VegiTerranean

September 15, 2007 – Founder of the Pretenders Chrissie Hynde and Adam Seymour, lead guitarist for the group, perform three songs to celebrate the opening of her Akron vegan restaurant VegiTerranean.
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Middlefield Cheese House

Spend a day among the Amish of northern Ohio and sample the Swiss Cheese manufactured at Middlefield Cheese House (800-32-SWISS) where a 20-minute movie will fill you in on why the Amish manufacture Swiss cheese in such quantities.
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Tim “Ripper” Owens

September 13, 1967 – Tim “Ripper” Owens is born in Akron. Owens is a heavy metal blaster who would draw on the angst of his Akron roots to become lead singer for Judas Priest.
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Bizzy Bone

September 12, 1976 – Bryon Anthony McCane II is born in Columbus. His high-pitched voice sets the flava of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. McCane assumes the name Bizzy Bone.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE September 11, 1985 – Cincinnati native son Pete Rose comes to bat in Riverfront Stadium and gets his 4,193th hit to move past Ty Cobb on baseball’s all-time hit list. September 11 – Doug Cherry’s ashes are interned at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in his home town of Terrace Park, where he was a champion prep swimmer. Cherry died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
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Steamship Gen. Anthony Wayne

September 10, 2006 – Auto parts supplier Tom Kowalczk of Lakeside spends a 12-hour day searching for the side-wheel steamship Gen. Anthony Wayne, which went down April 27, 1850, north of Vermilion. He sees the wheelhouse on his last pass of the day. The ship, according to legend, was carrying millions of dollars in gold coins but Kowalszk doesn’t believe the story, and anyhow, wrecks in Lake Erie are owned by the State of Ohio.
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Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder

September 9, 1919 – The late Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder is born in Steubenville. A television commentator, he was fired in 1988 when he said slave owners bred big black women to big black men to get big black kids and that’s why blacks were better athletes. He claimed to have bet $10,000 at 17-to-one odds that Truman would beat Dewey in 1948. He was born Dimetrios Georgios Synodinos and is buried in Union Cemetery in Steubenville.
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Billy “Thunder” Mason

September 8, 2004 - Already at the top of the charts, Tim McGraw’s Live Like You Were Dying features the drumming of Fairborne native Billy “Thunder” Mason.
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The Pretenders

September 7, 1951 - Pretenders founder Chrissie Hynde is born in Akron where she graduated from Firestone High School before becoming an international icon of rock and roll.
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Big Muskie Bucket

Check out the Big Muskie Bucket. Once the world’s largest earthmoving bucket, all that remains of that giant machine is the gaping maw. Find it in Reinersville at Miner’s Memorial Park west on Ohio Route 78 off I-77 at the Caldwell exit.
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Goodyear's Air Dock Hanger

September 4 – At 22 stories high, the Goodyear Air Dock Hanger in Akron was the largest building without interior supports until the Houston Astrodome was built. Find it at 1201 East Market St. in Akron.
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U.S.S. Shenandoah

September 3, 1925 – The dirigible U.S.S. Shenandoah was colossal at 680 feet long and 93 feet high. It was on a tour of Noble County when it encountered a violent updraft, which tore it apart. Fourteen people died but 29 survived after a harrowing few miles as the nose bumped along at treetop level. A monument and trailer/museum is in Ava with a marker four miles west of I-77 at exit 25 on Ohio 78.
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Ronald Isley

September 2, 2006 – Iconic rock singer Ronald Isley, born in Cincinnati, is sentenced to three years and a day in prison for tax evasion. Isley, 66, suffered a stroke prior to his incarceration and developed kidney cancer.
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Wayne Hayes

September 1, 1976 – Democrat Congressman Wayne Hayes, the former mayor of Bancock, resigns after Elizabeth Ray told the Washington Post that she was his mistress and had been hired by Hayes as a secretary even though she “couldn’t type, file or answer the phone.”
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DAILY DOUBLE

DAILY DOUBLE August 31, 1749 – French explorer Celoreon de Bienville claims all land east of the Great Miami River, which is west of Cincinnati, for France. He puts a lead plaque at the river’s mouth to the Ohio River as proof. It's still there somewhere. August 31, 1966 – Flora Irvin of Cincinnati goes boating on the Ohio River and hauls in a 25-pound, 49-inch longnose Gar, a state record and the ugliest freshwater fish in the world.
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Hank Williams

August 30, 1949 – Hank Williams records I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, A House Without Love, I Just Don’t Like This Kind of Living and My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It at the former Herzog Studios in Cincinnati on Race Street near Garfield Place.
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Charles Franklin Kettering

August 29, 1876 - Charles Franklin Kettering is born on a farm near Loudonville. A graduate of The Ohio State University, he helps develops the first electronic cash register, creates the Dayton Engineering Laboratories, now known as Delco, and is credited for the first electronic ignition. His house was the first house in America to have air conditioning from freon.
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Pere Ubu

August 28, 1975: One of Ohio's most creative rock bands, the punk experimentalists Pere Ubu, forms in Akron with singer David Thomas, guitarists Peter Laughner and Tom Herman, bassist Tim Wright, keyboardists Allen Ravenstine and drummer Scott Krauss. Named after a French surrealist play, the band -- amid personnel changes -- has gone on to record such alternative classics as The Modern Dance, Dub Housing and Cloudland.
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The Beatles

August 27, 1964 – A campaign led by WSAI-1360 DJ Dusty Rhodes, who is still on the air at WDJO-1160 AM, leads the Beatles to add Cincinnati and Crosley Field to their first tour of America. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...
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The 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

August 26, 1862 – The 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry ends its siege of Atlanta to battle for control of the Chattahoochie River Bridge. Sherman’s march to the sea and back through the Carolinas is about to begin. They would cover 465 miles in 100 days and bring an end to the Civil War.
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LaRosa’s

August 25, 1930 – Donald “Buddy” LaRosa is born in Cincinnati. Twenty-four years later, the spunky little Italian chef opens a restaurant on Boudinot Avenue with three partners. All have other jobs. Buddy sticks with it, and when he retires in 2007, LaRosa’s has 3,000 employees working in 61 pizzerias with annual sales of $132.4 million.
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Roy Rogers

August 24, 1956 – The Ohio State Fair opens with Cincinnati native son Roy Rogers, America’s King of the Cowboys, the headliner. Rogers, formerly known as Leonard Franklin Slye, his wife, Dale Evans, and horse, Trigger, were there, too. All three are amazed at their incredible good fortune.
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Alice Cooper

August 23, 1970 – Alice Cooper and bandmates - nobodies at the time but nobodies with attitude - are invited to stay at the Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) house at 2419 Ohio Ave. in Cincinnati after a gig at the Ludlow Garage. They won't leave. Weeks pass. Uh, could you guys go? They paint walls with crude art. Uh, maybe you guys should leave, a dad, a lawyer suggests. They leave, finally. The world gets the song I'm Eighteen.
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John Lee Hooker

August 22, 1917 – John Lee Hooker is born in Clarksdale, Miss. By 1932, when he was 15, he leaves and eventually lands in Cincinnati, where he plays guitar at speakeasies on Reading Road and in churches on Sundays. Working at a spring factory, he lives in Cincinnati for four years before heading to Detroit and the world stage: Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom....Gonna shoot you right down.....
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Scott Hamilton

August 21, 1961 – Now two years old, Scott Hamilton, who would become one of the most famous male figure skaters of all-time and an Olympic Gold Medal winner, enters a Toledo hospital suffering from a mysterious illness. He would be hospitalized on and off for the next six years. When he took up skating at the age of nine, the illness disappeared and Hamilton glides to fortune and fame.
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Hopewell Culture National Historical Park

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Ohio 104 near Chillicothe offers mounds and a terrace to view 2,000-year-old earthworks. A 14-mile long trail takes viewers through the Hopewell Mound Group.
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Lifesavers

August 19, 1913 – Lifesaver candy gets a patent. Inventor and candy maker Clarence Arthur Crane, a native of Garrettsville and father of the poet Hart Crane, is troubled by slow chocolate sales in the summer at his Cleveland candy store, so he uses a pharmacist’s pill maker to make peppermint candies - the first lifesavers.
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Haskell's modern golf ball

August 18, 1898 - Coburn Haskell of Cleveland takes a train to Akron for a business appointment with Bertram Work, a superintendent of B.F. Goodrich. While waiting at the plant to meet with Work, Haskell winds a long rubber band into a ball. When he drops it, the ball almost bounces to the ceiling. Work tells Haskell to put a cover on it, and with that suggestion, the modern golf ball is invented.
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Pete Rose

August 17, 1986 – The end comes swiftly for pinch hitter Pete Rose – fastballs from San Diego’s Goose Gossage and an eighth inning strike out at Cincinnati Riverfront Stadium. After 24 seasons in the sun, Rose shuts it down at 14,053 plate appearances.
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Ray Chapman

August 16, 1920 - Ray Chapman, a Cleveland Indians' star shortstop, dies after he was hit in the head by a pitch. The pitcher, Carl Mays, thought the ball had hit Chapman’s bat so he fielded it and threw to first base. A memorial to Chapman is in Heritage Park at Jacob’s Field in Cleveland. Chapman's bust is framed by a baseball diamond and flanked by two bats with a fielder's mitt: "He Lives In The Hearts Of All Who Knew Him."
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Fascinating Ohio

August 15, 1992 – Gus J. Gronowski of Parma, a fisherman’s name if there ever was one, lands a 37.65-pound channel catfish that is 41 ½ inches long and once haunted the mud of LaDue Reservoir.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE August 14, 2003 – Doh! A FirstEnergy employee forgets to reset a monitor. When a storm tears across Cleveland, a limb falls on a line in Walton Hills and 50 million people lose power in North America. August 14, 1986 – Pete Rose flares a single off RHP Greg Minton in Riverfront Stadium for his 4,256th hit. He went three for four. His last at bat would be his last hit and the most by any player in history.
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Mudcat Grant

August 13, 1935 – James Timothy Grant is born in Land O’Lakes, Fla. and later comes to Cleveland where he pitches for the Indians from 1958-1964. His was coolest name in all of baseball: Mudcat Grant.
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Drew Carey

August 12, 2006 – The Cleveland Indians invite Brooklyn, Ohio, native and TV star and comedian Drew Carey, a former Brooklyn High teacher, to throw out the first pitch on Drew Carey Bobblehead night.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE Aug. 11, 1949 – Singer/songwriter Eric Carmen, all by himself, is born in Lyndhurst, an eastern suburb of Cleveland. A graduate of Charles F. Brush High School, he was 18 & a member of The Choir when they had their 1967 hit It's Cold Outside. It won't be his last. Aug. 11, 1929 – Babe Ruth becomes first player to hit 500 home runs and does it with a blast in the former League Park in Cleveland.

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Jay Cooke

August 10, 1831 – Jay Cooke is born in Bloomingville. He would become a prominent American banker and a major financier of the military effort for the North during the Civil War.
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Charlie Manson

August 9, 1969 – Charlie Manson and his cult murder pregnant Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger and three others. Six years before, petty criminal Manson frequented the City View Tavern in Mount Adams in Cincinnati. Drunk on Tequila, he would stand on a railing above the city and spread his arms and cape. Manson was banned from the bar and so was Tequila. You still can't buy Tequila at the City View.
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Thurman Munson

August 8, 1969 – Akron native Thurman Munson makes his Major League Baseball debut as a New York Yankee. Munson, who grew up in Canton, would be a seven-time All-Star before dying in a twin-engine jet crash while practicing touch-and-goes at Akron-Canton airport. An empty locker with Munson's number 15 on it remains in the Yankee clubhouse as a tribute to the catcher.
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Danny Graves

August 7, 1973 – Danny Graves is born in Saigon, Vietnam, and would become the only Vietnamese-born player to make the big leagues. While pitching for the Cincinnati Reds in 2005, he gave a fan the finger as he was leaving the game because the fan had called him a racist name. Graves was released from the Reds and although he apologized to other fans, he had no remorse about letting one loudmouth know how he felt.
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Coney Island Amusement Park

August 6 – On a summer day just like this one in the early 1950s, a gray-haired man sits on a park bench at Coney Island Amusement Park in Cincinnati to watch children and their parents at play. It’s Walt Disney and when he leaves, he has an idea – build a massive amusement park near Los Angeles and call it Disneyland.
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Coach Paul Brown

August 5, 1981 – Coach Paul Brown dies. His first game as a coach came not as a high school coach but as a junior high football coach in Massillon. Brown’s strategies would transform college football, then the NFL and, finally, the game itself for all time.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE August 4, 1962 – Speedballer Roger Clemens, who probably still hasn't owned up to steroid use, is born in Dayton. August 4, 1989 – Walter Shumaker of Ashtabula is fishing in Lake Erie when he lands a 29.5 pound, 42 7/8 inch Chinook Salmon. Boy is he surprised. It’s a state record.
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Johnny and the Hurricanes

August 3, 1959: One of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest instrumental bands, Toledo’s Johnny and the Hurricanes, enters the Billboard singles charts with its biggest hit, Red River Rock. The quintet is led by saxophonist Johnny Paris, born in Rossford. The group has several more hits, including Beatnik Fly, and is name-checked by the Kinks in their song One of the Survivors.
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President Warren G. Harding

August 2, 2023 – On this day, the 100th anniversary of the death of President Warren G. Harding, his love letters to mistress Carrie Phillips will become public. The letters are currently held by the Ohio Historical Society.
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Mount Buckeye

August 1, 2008 - The American Dairy Association pays tribute to the eight United States presidents from Ohio with 2,480 pounds of butter that four Cincinnati artists sculpt into a likeness of each for the Ohio State Fair – a Mount Rushmore-like display of butter dubbed Mount Buckeye.
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William Quantrill

July 31, 1837 – William Quantrill is born in Dover. He moved to Missouri and led the massacre of 200 men and boys in the Civil War pillage of Lawrence, Kansas. The raid came after a makeshift jail collapsed and killed sisters and wives of Rebels. Quantrill’s remains were dug up by a friend and taken to Dover. His skull ended up at a Kent State University fraternity. A wax replica is now in a fridge near the J.E. Reeves museum in Dover.
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Joe Nuxhall

July 30, 1928 - Joe Nuxhall is born in Hamilton. He took a liking to baseball and when he was 15-years-old became the youngest player to appear in a modern Major League Baseball game when he pitched 2/3 of an inning.
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Kenneth “Babyface” Edmunds

July 29, 1978 – Kenneth “Babyface” Edmunds hangs out around a Cincinnati recording studio, begging people to record him. He creates his own band, The Deele, and after playing and writing for Midnight Star, Edmunds focuses on songwriting. He would pen hits like Madonna’s Take a Bow, Exhale (Shoop, Shoop) for Whitney Houston, Change the World with Eric Clapton and win three consecutive Grammy Awards from 1995-1997.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE July 28, 1982: Comedian Joe E. Brown dies. Born in Holgate, Brown’s best role came in Some Like It Hot, when he responds “Well, nobody’s perfect” when the woman of his dreams, played by Jack Lemmon, reveals herself a man in disguise. July 28, 1979 – Richard Affolter, New Philadelphia, lands a monster at Clendening Lake: a 76.5 pound Flathead Catfish. At 59 5/8 inches long, it's the biggest fish ever caught in Ohio.

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Garrett Morgan

July 27, 1963: Garrett Morgan, the inventor of the traffic light, dies. The Cleveland resident had to have a white partner sell another invention, a safety hood and smoke protector, because some people wouldn’t buy the device from an African-American.

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Combat gliders

WACO Field and Aircraft Museum in Troy is dedicated to history of combat gliders. By late 1944, the Americans had built more than 14,000 gliders. Silent and loaded with troops, they were used in the invasion of Sicily, the D-Day assault on German troops in France on June 6, 1944, as well as other operations during World War II.
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Holiday Hysell

July 25, 1863 - Chester – Unarmed Holiday Hysell, 70, turns out to watch Morgan’s Raiders pass through town. Holiday can't help himself. His Buckeye razz “Huzzah for the Union,” ends with a Rebel rider pulling his gun and sending good old Holiday, who always spoke his mind, right into the hereafter. May you rest in peace, Holiday.
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Fred Arbogast

It’s a good day to go fishing or think about fishing. Akronite and fishing lure mogul Fred Arbogast, developer of the Jitterbug and Hula Popper, thought about fishing a lot. He once held the world’s long-distance casting record of 250 feet. He built his company from his house at 313 W. North St.
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500 Porsches

About this time each year, Oxford holds its annual Porsches 2 Oxford cruise-in with as many as 500 Porsche owners riding through town to Hueston Woods State Park. For more information and to confirm the date, always toward the end of July, see www.porsches2oxford.com
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The Cuyahoga River catches fire

DAILY DOUBLE July 21, 2003 – At 2.03 pounds and 12 ¼ inches long, the hybrid sunfish caught by Ray Durham of Oak Hill from a Campaign County farm pond is a state record. June 22, 1969 - The Cuyahoga River catches fire. Although the river had caught fire nine other times - the first time being in 1868 - this five-story blaze drew national attention to polluted Ohio's waterways.
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Fascinating Ohio

July 21, 1934 – State record temperature of 131 set near Gallipolis, and in 2001, Fremont’s James S. Williams decides to go fishing on the Sandusky River, which runs right through town. He catches a 23.5 pound Drum, also known as a Sheepshead, that is 37 1/8 inches long and brings Williams a state record.
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Grandma’s cuckoo clock

It was once the world’s largest cuckoo clock but no more. Still, it’s something to behold. Built atop a restaurant/tourist stop called Grandma’s Alpine Homestead at 1504 Us Route 62, Wilmot, the clock has little plaster people who used to move in and out of their cuckoo-house.
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The battle of Buffington Island

July 19, 1863: The only major battle of the Civil War fought in Ohio occurs on Buffington Island in Meigs County. Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan had crossed the Ohio River 11 days earlier with 2,000 mounted men and then moved east across the southern end of the state, terrorizing most everybody. Nearly 150 men were wounded or killed in the battle, with 800 to 1,200 Rebels taken prisoner.
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John Glenn

July 18, 1921 – God speed, John Glenn. Born in on this day in Cambridge, Glenn would "pilot" the Mercury-Atlas 6 "Friendship 7" spacecraft on the first U.S. manned orbital mission.

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Santa Maria

Columbus is the home of the Santa Maria replica, a museum-quality ship moored on the Scioto River at Battelle Riverfront Park (614-645-8760). Now you’ll know how bad the crew had it back in those days when Christopher Columbus sailed the deep blue sea (or was it the ocean blue?).
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John Glenn

July 16, 1957 – Pilot John Glenn sets coast-to-coast record of 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.4 seconds in a Vought F8U-1 Crusader. While passing over New Concord, he dipped low enough to rattle and break windows all over town from the resulting sonic boom - a gesture that Glenn would later regret because having to replace all those windows really annoyed the town. But it did make the local hardware store owner very, very happy.
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Satchel Paige

July 15, 1948 – Satchel Paige becomes the first African-American pitcher in the Major Leagues to get a win – 8-5 against the Philadelphia Athletics. Paige ended the year with 21 appearances and a 6-1 record with a 2.48 ERA, 2 shutouts, 43 strikeouts, 22 walks and 61 base hits allowed in 72 2/3 innings. The Indians win the World Series in 1948.
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Ohio Governor’s Residence

July 14 – Take a tour of the Ohio Governor’s Residence (614-644-7644) at 358 Parkview Ave. but you will need at least a group of 10 and more than a little wonder at the political will of all those men who occupied this mansion over time.
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Albert Ayler

July 13, 1936 – Albert Ayler is born in Cleveland Heights, learns to play oboe in high school, switches to saxophone, jams with harmonica player Little Walter and ends up in Sweden with a radio show. Wow. He returns to New York City where his sax style brings him cult status as a jazzman for the ages. He died in the icy waters of the East River, where he was found floating in 1970 after he jumped from the Statue of Liberty ferry.
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Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones

July 12, 1904 - Toledo's best mayor, Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones, dies in his second term. The millionaire manufacturer, who sometimes stood on his head to preach Christian brotherhood, instituted a "Golden Rule" in his factories and gave workers higher pay and more leisure time. At his Gold Rule Park, a Golden Rule Band played. Jones humanized conditions for the poor, took away police nightsticks and wanted the public to own utilities.
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Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones

July 12, 1904 - Toledo's best mayor, Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones, dies in his second term. The millionaire manufacturer, who sometimes stood on his head to preach Christian brotherhood, instituted a "Golden Rule" in his factories and gave workers higher pay and more leisure time. At his Gold Rule Park, a Golden Rule Band played. Jones humanized conditions for the poor, took away police nightsticks and wanted the public to own utilities.
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Rugrats

July 11, 1952 – Bob Mothersbaugh is born in Akron. He would become the lead vocalist and guitarist for Devo and through his music production company, Mutato Muzika, produce tunes for the TV cartoon show The Rugrats.
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Rascal Flatts

July 10, 1970 – Gary Wayne Vernon Jr. is born in Columbus. He would change his name to Gary LeVox, move to Nashville and become lead vocalist for Rascal Flatts. His name means, literally, "Gary the Voice." He is a graduate of Olentangy High School and the Ohio State University.
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100 runs

July 9, 1859 – The first team to score 100 runs at a baseball game in Ashtabula will be the winner, a Cleveland newspaper reported.
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John Hunt Morgan

July 8, 1863 – John Hunt Morgan crosses the Ohio River into Southern Indiana with about 2,000 mounted soldiers and within five days they are headed into Ohio through the small town of Harrison. Folks are hiding behind those boarded up windows.
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Satchel Paige

July 7, 1906 – Satchel Paige is born in Mobile, Ala. He learns the craft of pitching at a boys school, would be the star of the American Negro League, and on his birthday at the age of 42, he is hired by the Cleveland Indians. “Fastest and best pitcher I ever faced,” said Joe DiMaggio.
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Schnormeier Gardens

July 6 - Privately owned Schnormeier Gardens in Gambier in central Ohio each year offers to the public a one-day chance to tour 75 acres of wonder: a Japanese teahouse, Australian black swans, a Chinese pavilion, Japanese zigzag bridge, waterfall,10 lakes and sculptures. More info at schnormeiergardens.org.
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Hanky Panky

July 4, 1966 – Dayton native Thomas Gregory Jackson, who is now playing as Tommy James and the Shondells, is delighted to find that his song "Hanky Panky" entered the Billboard Charts at No. 1, higher than the Beatles Paperback Writer at No. 2. Hits to follow will include I Think We’re Alone Now, Mirage, Mony Mony, Crimson and Clover, Sweet Cherry Wine and Crystal Blue Persuasion: "It's a new vibration..."
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The Loudonville Car Show

July 3 - The Loudonville Car Show offers over 500 classic cars on display in event billed by Cruisin’ Times magazine as a Top Ten car show in America. (877) 2MO-HICA
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Warren G. Harding

TRIPLE PLAY July 2, 1921 – President Warren G. Harding of Marion interrupts his golf game long enough to sign a resolution ending World War I. July 2, 1993 – Mark Chuifo of Ravenna catches a 37.10-pound, 41.25-inch striped bass for a state record at West Branch Reservoir. In 1999 Tim Veit of Galena fishes Hoover Reservoir north of Columbus when he lands a titanic 46.01 pound 42-inch long Buffalo sucker for a state record.
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Fascinating Ohio

July 1, 1983 – Ira Sizemore of Cincinnati catches a 4-pound 21-inch white bass from a Southwest Ohio gravel pit. It’s a whopper and a state record.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 30, 1973 - Engineer Robert Lange admires his nephew's coasting car in Boulder, Colo. Lange conceals an electric magnet in the nose to give it an edge in the upcoming International Soap Box Derby race in Akron. Lange's device attracts the car to the steel paddle starter, and the car blows away the competition. But when X-rays reveal the gadget, the victory cup goes to another, and Boulder is forever banned from future races.
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Gov. Bob Taft

June 29, 2004 – Ohio Gov. Bob Taft of Cincinnati likes to golf - even with lobbyists - and it comes back to haunt him as he fails to report numerous rounds as gifts. He didn't report a Teddy Bear from the Meigs County Commissioners, either. Taft pleads no contest to misdemeanor charges for not disclosing gifts and becomes the first governor charged with a crime while in office.
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Deadliest tornado

June 28, 1924 – The deadliest tornado in Ohio history tears through Lorain and Sandusky, killing 85. It formed on Lake Erie and its 25-mile path of destruction leveled 500 homes and damaged 1,000 others.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 27, 1844 - Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Mormon Church, also known as The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, leaves his temple at Kirtland, Ohio, for Carthage, Ill., where an angry and fearful mob would gather and kill him.
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Teflon

June 26, 1910 - Roy G. Plunkett is born in New Carlisle. He would graduate with a Phd from Ohio State University in 1936 and two years later, while working for DuPont, he creates a substance by accident that does not stick to the sides of the container holding it. Teflon is born.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 25, 1876 – Buckeye native George Armstrong Custer of New Rumley would become a brigadier general at the age of 23. He and his two rowdy brothers, Thomas and Boston, die on this day at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 24, 1915 - More than 140 animal effigy pipes of turtles, beavers, bobcats, owls and hawks are excavated and shipped to the British Museum from the Tremper Mound, a Hopewell site at Ohio 73 and Ohio 104 north of Portsmouth.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE June 23, 1882 – A "Mystery Wave" swamps Cleveland. Logs were carried hundreds of feet inland and the forge at Cleveland Rolling Mill went out. June 23, 1976 – William DeHart Hubbard finishes his remarkable run through life. Cincinnatian Hubbard was the first African-American Olympic gold medal winner. The Walnut Hills High School grad won the long jump at the 1924 Paris Olympics, despite competing with an injured heel.
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The state seal

Want to see the scene used for the state seal? At U.S. Route 23 and U.S. Route 35 on the north side of Chillicothe is the restored mansion of former Ohio Gov. Thomas Worthington. Built in 1806-07, it’s a nice spot from which to check out the rolling hills of the Logan Range, the landscape on the state seal.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 21, 1985 - Ettore Boiardi, dies in Parma at the age of 87. He opened his first restaurant, Il Giardino d'Italia, in Cleveland in 1926. The spaghetti sauce was so good, he sold it carryout to customers in old milk bottles. Before long, the national brand Chef Boy Ar Dee was in millions of households nationwide. June 21, 1850 – Daniel Carter Beard, who would become the founder of the Boy Scouts of America, is born in Cincinnati.
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Summer Solstice Sunset Celebration

Plan your travel for tomorrow’s Summer Solstice Sunset Celebration, and an 8 p.m. hike at Ohio Serpent Mound – Adams County to catch the fading rays of the longest day of the year might be a nice place to visit.
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Washboard Music Festival

June 19: The two-day Washboard Music Festival, Ohio’s most unique music festival, begins in Logan. The Hocking County seat is home to the Columbus Washboard Co., the lone remaining washboard manufacturing company in the U.S. The festival always is held the two days before Father’s Day, so this date is a moving target.
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Carol Kane

June 18, 1952 – Carol Kane, star of Dog Day Afternoon, is born in Cleveland. She also portrayed Simka Dahblitz-Gravas, wife of Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman) on the TV series Taxi and was Madame Morrible in Wicked, a Broadway musical.
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Ohio Express

June 17, 1968 – “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” by the Ohio Express goes gold. The band hailed from Mansfield and were originally known as Sir Timothy & The Royals. This strange song would symbolize Bubble Gum Music and become the scourge of serious pop song writers everywhere.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE June 16, 1778 – Daniel Boone, encamped for several months about three miles north of Xenia, sees a war party forming of 450 Shawnee, escapes and travels 160 miles south in five days to lead the defense of Boonesborough, Ky., a town he founded. June 16, 1993 – Randy Van Dam of Kalamazoo, Mich., catches a 9.5-pound, 23.5 inch smallmouth bass from Lake Erie.
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The Toledo War.

DAILY DOUBLE
June 15, 1836 - The State of Ohio and the Michigan Territory agree to end a border skirmish called the Toledo War.

June 15, 1938 – Johnny Vander Meer throws a no-hitter in back-to-back starts, a major league baseball record that is unlikely to ever be broken as it will require a pitcher to throw three back-to-back no-hit games. Only 256 no-hitters have ever been thrown.

More Fascinating Ohio

Fascinating Ohio

June 14, 1990 – A flash flood on Wegee Creek and Pipe Creek in Belmont County kills 26 people as rain brings 4 inches an hour and creates a terrible six-foot wall of water that roared down those rural Ohio streams.
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Antonio L.A. Reid

June 13, 1976 – Antonio L.A. Reid hangs out around a 3rd St. Cincinnati recording studio where PB Stadium is today, begging to be recorded. A drummer, he co-creates The Deele, shakes off the immense rejection and rises to CEO of Arista, signing Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Usher, Outkast, Avril Lavigne, Pink, Kanye West and The Killers. Once he was just a kid with a dream, begging for a backer and studio time.
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George H. Sisler

June 12, 1939 - George H. Sisler of the small town of Manchester south of Akron is one of the first thirteen players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on this day, as the museum opens to the public and national acclaim. Sisler was a mechanical engineer with a degree from the University of Michigan, but decided to play baseball instead.
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Johnny Vander Meer

June 11, 1938 – Cincinnati Reds starter Johnny Vander Meer throws a no-hitter against the Boston Braves at Crosley Field. He threw left-handed and was the seldom-seen switch-hitting pitcher.
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Joe Nuxhall

June 10, 1944 – Southpaw teenager Joe Nuxhall at 15 becomes the youngest pitcher to play in a major league baseball game when he takes to the mound for the Cincinnati Reds. He would later say of that outing: “I was pitching against seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, kids 13 and 14 years old. All of a sudden, I look up and there's Stan Musial. It was a very scary situation.”
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Ken Griffey Jr

June 9, 2008 – Ken Griffey Jr., who grew up in Kenwood, a suburb of Cincinnati, pounds a ball into the right field seats at Dolphin Stadium in Miami before a crowd of about 10,000 for the 600th homerun of his career. He joins Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron at the milestone. Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds also hit 600 homeruns but unlike others in this elite club, they played under the influence of steroids.
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Fascinating Ohio

Enjoy spicy sausage and fresh-grilled peppers, cavatelli, eggplant rolatini and big platters of pasta at the annual Italian American Summer Festival on the first weekend in June at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds in Berea.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 7, 1927 – Cleveland brothers Fredrick G. and William M. Foberth are issued a patent for the pneumatic-powered windshield wiper. Go fast? So do the wipers. Go slow? So do the wipers. Eventually electric motors do away with pneumatic wipers but for a time, the Foberths are in high cotton.
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Fascinating Ohio

DAILY DOUBLE
June 6, 1890: Bandleader Ted Lewis (Theodore Leopold Friedman) was born in Circleville. During the Roaring Twenties and the Depression, he became one of America’s top entertainers with his catchphrase “Is everybody happy?” June 6, 2004 – Not even a quarter of a pound, the long ear sunfish caught by Brian Zimmerman of Hartville in Big Darby Creek weighs .2 pounds and is just 6 ½ inches long -big enough to be a state record.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 5, 1895 – William Boyd is born in Hendrysburg, about 26 miles east of Cambridge. He became a silent film actor and would become a multi-millionaire after he purchased rights to his character, Hopalong Cassidy, then put the dozens of films on TV. A Hopalong Cassidy Museum in Cambridge is a tribute to Boyd and displays Hopalong gear and collectibles. Where is your old Hopalong cereal bowl?
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Fascinating Ohio

June 4, 1974: The Cleveland Indians forfeit a game to the Texas Rangers at cavernous Municipal Stadium because the crowd was uncontrollably rowdy due to the Indians’ 10-cent beer promotion to spur ticket sales.
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Fascinating Ohio

Ohio’s monumental Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks and Serpent Mound are on U.S. Department of Interior’s 14 U.S. cultural and natural areas that should be considered of World Heritage Status. The site is on Ohio 73 near Peebles (800-752-2757)
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Fascinating Ohio

June 2, 1927: Cleveland Mayor Carl Burton Stokes, the first African American elected mayor of a major U.S. city, is born. He grew up in public housing at Outhwaite Homes, was a high school drop-out but returned to school after a stint in the Army. Following his time as mayor, a term marked by corruption, Stokes became the first black anchorman in New York City as an anchor at WNBC-TV in 1972. He died April 3, 1996.
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Fascinating Ohio

June 1, 1808 - First U.S. land-grant university founded at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. About 150 years later the school gets a reputation as a party school because, well, because students tend to have a great, good time at OU. Go Bobcats!
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