The Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy refers to the murder of Kentucky legislator
Solomon P. Sharp by Jereboam O. Beauchamp. As a young lawyer, Beauchamp
had been an admirer of Sharp's until the latter allegedly fathered an
illegitimate child with a woman named Anna Cooke. Sharp denied
paternity of the stillborn child. Later, Beauchamp began a relationship
with Cooke, who agreed to marry him on the condition that he kill
Sharp. Beauchamp and Cooke married in June 1824, and in the early
morning of November 7, 1825, Beauchamp murdered Sharp at Sharp's home
in Frankfort, Kentucky. An investigation soon revealed Beauchamp as the
murderer, and he was apprehended at his home in Glasgow, Kentucky, four
days after the murder. He was tried, convicted, and hanged for his
crime on July 7, 1826. He was the first person legally executed in the
state of Kentucky. While the primary motive for Sharp's murder was
defending the honor of Anna Cooke, speculation raged that Sharp's
political opponents instigated the crime. Sharp was a leader of the New
Court party during the Old Court – New Court controversy in Kentucky.
At least one Old Court partisan alleged that Sharp denied paternity of
Cooke's son by claiming the child was a mulatto, the son of a family
slave. Whether Sharp actually made such a claim has never been
verified. New Court partisans insisted that the allegation was
concocted to stir Beauchamp's anger and provoke him to murder. The
Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy served as the inspiration for literary works,
most notably Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished Politian and Robert Penn
Warren's World Enough and Time.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauchamp%E2%80%93Sharp_Tragedy>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1698:
The Darien scheme began with five ships departing Leith to establish a
Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Panama.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme>
1791:
The Priestley Riots began to drive out Joseph Priestley and other
religious Dissenters out of Birmingham, England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestley_Riots>
1958:
King Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was overthrown by a military
coup d'état led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_July_Revolution>
1969:
Political conflicts between El Salvador and Honduras erupted into the
four-day Football War, so-named because it coincided with the inflamed
rioting during the second CONCACAF qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA
World Cup.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War>
2002:
After being treated for medical conditions, the orca Springer was
released into the Johnstone Strait off the coast of British Columbia,
Canada, becoming the first whale in history to be re-integrated into a
wild pod after human intervention.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springer_%28orca%29>
2003:
The U.S. Government admitted the existence of Area 51, the secretive
military airfield in Nevada that has become a focus of various UFO and
conspiracy theories, conceding that the U.S. Air Force does have an
"operating location" there.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
inculcate (v):
1. To teach by repeated instruction.
2. To induce understanding or a particular sentiment
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inculcate>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from
falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about
all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working
machine ... don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as
there is a human to race. The human race is a pretty old place.
--Woody Guthrie
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie>