Solomon P. Sharp (1787–1825) was attorney general of Kentucky and a member of the United States Congress and the Kentucky General Assembly. His murder at the hands of Jereboam O. Beauchamp in 1825 is referred to as the Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy or The Kentucky Tragedy. Sharp began his political career representing Warren County, Kentucky, in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He briefly served in the War of 1812, then returned to Kentucky and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1813. He was re-elected to a second term, though his support of a controversial bill regarding legislator salaries cost him his seat in 1816. Aligning himself with Kentucky's Debt Relief Party, he returned to the Kentucky House in 1817 but resigned his seat in 1821 to accept Governor John Adair's appointment to the post of Attorney General of Kentucky. In 1818, rumors surfaced that Sharp had fathered a stillborn illegitimate child with Anna Cooke. When the charges were repeated during Sharp's 1825 General Assembly campaign, he supposedly claimed that the child was a mulatto and could not have been his. Jereboam Beauchamp, who had married Cooke in 1824 and was incensed by this attack upon her honor, fatally stabbed Sharp in Sharp's home early on the morning of November 7, 1825.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_P._Sharp

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

27 BC:

Gaius Octavianus was given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus

929:

Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III of Cordoba declared himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Córdoba. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd-ar-Rahman_III

1120:

The Council of Nablus was held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Nablus

1547:

Ivan the Terrible was crowned Tsar of Russia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_IV_of_Russia

1809:

Peninsular War: French forces under Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult attacked the amphibious evacuation of the British under Sir John Moore in Corunna, Galicia, Spain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Corunna

1992:

The Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed, ending the 12-year Salvadoran Civil War between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

heinous (adj): Totally reprehensible, horrible, wicked http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heinous

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. --Evelyn Beatrice Hall http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall