This Day in History - October 18

[USA1]

1767 - The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line, was agreed upon.

1867 - The United States took possession of Alaska from Russia.

1912 - The first Balkan War broke out.

1931 - Inventor Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, N.J., at age 84.

[seamusTX]

1685 - King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes and subsequently made the Protestant religions illegal.

This move caused French Protestants to emigrate to many other countries, including the the southeastern coast of North America. For a while there were majority French towns, such as Louisville, Kentucky. Now, for the most part, the descendants of these immigrants are fully assimilated.

- Jim

[juggernaut]

I wonder why they named their town after the king who outlawed their religion.

[seamusTX]

The French-Americans didn't name Louisville, and it wasn't named after Louis XIV, if we can rely on Wikipedia:

The first European settlement in the vicinity of modern-day Louisville was on Corn Island in 1778 by Col. George Rogers Clark, who is today recognized as the founder of Louisville....

Two years later, in 1780, the Virginia General Assembly approved the town charter of Louisville. The city was named in honor of King Louis XVI of France, whose soldiers at the time were aiding Americans in the Revolutionary War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisville ... ky#History" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I didn't know about the "French connection" to Louisville until I ran across it researching the consequences of the revocation of the Edict of of Nantes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... Louisville" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW, the pronunciation the name of Louisville, Kentucky, is half French and half English. If it were completely French, it would be something like loo ee vee.

- Jim