Nathan Hale
(1755-1776)
Nathan Hale, born in Coventry, Connecticut, was an important personage during the American Revolutionary War and is known as a soldier and martyr for American independence. An alumnus (class of 1773) and faculty member at Yale College, he was hired by the Connecticut militia when the war broke out, in 1775, and joined the Continental Army soon afterward. He helped to defend New York City in 1776 as a captain, and volunteered to cross enemy lines on a spy mission, disguised as a Dutch teacher, on Long Island. Unfortunately, the British soldiers captured him, and General William Howe himself ordered Hale's execution: death by hanging. The next day, standing on the gallows, Hale reputedly made a short speech ending with the words, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" ("Hale, Nathan," 181).

Pequot Indians
The Pequot tribes were some of the very first settlers of the Connecticut Valley, an especially fertile area full of forests and shoals full of shellfish. The Algonquin-speaking Pequots (whose name means "destroyer"), who probably originated in New York State's Hudson Valley, were among the strongest of all the tribes in that area. After fighting with other tribes, such as the Narragansets and Niantics. By the early- to mid-1600s, they had conquered and taken control of most of Connecticut's coastline and even some of the formerly-Mohawk areas of Long island.
During this period of Pequot supremacy, the grand sachem, or great chief, was Sassacus, who lorded over 26 lesser chiefs, including one named Uncas, who grew unhappy with Sassacus's rule and formed a new tribe, the Mohicans, who became allies to the British colonists while the Pequots began to loathe the settlers. Disputes over land and goods only made matters worse, and, in 1636, war erupted. The first major war in New England, the Pequot War started after the death of a coastal trader. Allied with the very tribes that the Pequots had conquered, the settlers formed an army, which burned down Sassacus's village and forced his surrender (Waldman, 184-185).

The Charter Oak
The Connecticut Charter Oak was a large white oak in the city of Hartford. After a powerful storm, it fell down on August 21, 1856. Scientists examined it and found that it was approximately 1000 years old ("Charter Oak," 2001)
The story of the Charter Oak is deeply rooted in Connecticut's colonial history. John Winthrop, the founder of the colony, had obtained a charter to set up the Connecticut colony in the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlement of Hartford from the Boston Puritans. However, England did not formally recognize the document, so John Winthrop's son crossed the Atlantic to obtain an official charter for the then king of England, Charles II. The king granted Winthrop the charter, and Connecticut became and official colony ("The State Tree," 2001). The king following Charles II, James II, was intent on consolidating New England into one colony to make it simpler for him to rule it. He appointed Sir Edmund Andros governor-general of the soon-to-be colony of New England. In order to combine the colonies, James sent Andros to America to obtain the charters from each.
When Andros arrived at Hartford in 1687, the people, angry about the potential loss of their beloved charter, took the document to the Hartford Council Chamber to debate on what to do. The lights went out (or, possibly, were extinguished on purpose), and when finally they were relit, the charter had disappeared. Legend has it that, in the confusion caused by the blackout, Capt. John Wadsworth carried the charter out of the chamber and hid it inside the Charter Oak. No one has yet to discover the missing document, which was not found in the tree when it fell down ("The State Tree," 2001)

Yale University

Yale University is the third-oldest school of higher learning in the United States, preceded only by Harvard and Pricneton, and is a member of the Ivy League. It was founded in 1701, in Bradford, Connecticut, as the Collegiate School, under the rector (i.e. college president) Abraham Pierson. The college moved to New Haven, Connecticut, its current location, in 1716. It was then renamed Yale College, after its first major benefactor, Elihu Yale, a British merchant and philanthropist. Yale donated books, salable goods, and a portrait of King George I, all of which is estimated as totaling £1,162. Construction of the first New Haven building, Yale College, ended in 1716 and was followed by Connecticut Hall, built in 1750-52, which remains standing today. The first church at Yale, the Church of Christ, was built in 1757 (Holden, 639-641). Yale remains one of the foremost universities in the country to this day.