Today in History for July 30, 2014

Congressman Frank Boykin

July 30, 1813 – General Ferdinand L. Claiborne and his Mississippi militia reached Mount Vernon and learned that settlers had constructed Fort White, a small defensive fort a short distance northeast of Grove Hill in Clarke County, for defense against Red Stick raids.

July 30, 1838 - A rain of frogs fell in London, England.

July 30, 1864 – During the Civil War, at the Battle of the Crater, the Union’s attempt to break the Confederate lines at Petersburg, Va., by blowing up a huge cache of gunpowder at the end of a 500-foot tunnel they had dug under the Rebel trenches, failed. Although the explosion created a gap in the Confederate defenses, a poorly planned Yankee attack wasted the effort and the result was an eight-month continuation of the siege.

July 30, 1918 – During World War I, Army Pvt. Lessee L. Veasey of Andalusia was killed in action.

July 30, 1935 – Congressman Frank Boykin was first elected to Congress to fill the unexpired term of Monroe Countian John McDuffie who had resigned from office. Boykin went on to represent the district in Washington for the next 53 years.

July 30, 1936 – The Southwestern Division of the Medical Association met at First Baptist Church on the Square in Monroeville.

July 30, 1938 – The Bermuda baseball team beat Lenox, 22-5.

July 30, 1945 - On this day in 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sank within minutes in shark-infested waters. Only 317 of the 1,196 men on board survived. However, the Indianapolis had already completed its major mission: the delivery of key components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped a week later at Hiroshima to Tinian Island in the South Pacific.

July 30, 1947 – At the L.D. King Mill in Conecuh County, a fire broke out near a boiler shortly after noon and did considerable damage to machinery and equipment before being brought under control by the fire department.

July 30, 1975 - Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. He was last seen in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, near Detroit, and was declared dead in 1982.

July 30, 1999 – “The Blair Witch Project”, a low-budget, independent horror film that will become a massive hit, is released in U.S. theaters.