Today in History for Nov. 13, 2014

Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth.

Nov. 13, 1813 – The Upper Creek town of Atchinalgi in Randolph County, Ala. was destroyed by General James White and his Tennessee troopers.

Nov. 13, 1833 – Actor Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth, was born in Bel Air, Maryland.

Nov. 13, 1841 – James Braid first saw a demonstration of “animal magnetism,” which led to his study of the subject he eventually calls “hypnotism.”

Nov. 13, 1850 - Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Nov. 13, 1861 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward and Presidential Secretary John Hay paid a late night visit to General George B. McClellan. McClellan snubbed the President by retiring to his chambers before speaking to the president.

Nov. 13, 1900 - The Baltimore Orioles entered major league baseball's American League.


Nov. 13, 1912 – Fire destroyed the frame and sheet iron building owned by Allen Page and Mack T. Johnson in Castleberry, destroying the building and burning the entire stock of merchandise.

Nov. 13, 1941 – The Evergreen Courant reported that W. Sam Cope had purchased the Rutland Funeral Home and changed the name to Cope Funeral Home. Cope had been in charge of the Rutland Funeral Home for the three previous years.

Nov. 13, 1951 – During the Korean War, Army Cpl. Joel R. Martin of Conecuh County and Army Cpl. Eddie Gibby of Clarke County was “killed in action.”

Nov. 13, 1956 – The Supreme Court of the United States declared Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Nov. 13, 1963 – NFL quarterback Vinny Testaverde was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Nov. 13, 1971 - The NASA probe Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet as it swung around Mars.

Nov. 13, 1974 - On this evening, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. entered an Amityville, N.Y. bar and told people his parents had been shot inside their home. Several bar patrons accompanied DeFeo back to his family’s home, at 112 Ocean Avenue, where a man named Joe Yeswit called Suffolk Country police to report the crime. When officers arrived, they found the bodies of Ronald DeFeo Sr., age 43, his wife Louise, 42, and their children Dawn, 18, Allison, 13, Marc, 11, and John, 9. The victims had been shot dead in their beds. Ronald DeFeo Jr., 22, initially tried to say the murders were a mob hit; however, by the next day he confessed to committing the crimes himself.


Nov. 13, 1981 – Marine Corps Cpl. Christopher Winchester was born. He would be killed on July 14, 2005 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Later, a memorial marker was placed at the baseball fields in East Brewton.

Nov. 13, 1986 – The Evergreen Courant reported that freshman wide receiver Mike Bledsoe, a former Lyeffion High School standout, was playing football at Maryville College.

Nov. 13, 1991 - Roger Clemens won his third Cy Young Award for the American League.

Nov. 13, 1995 - Greg Maddox of the Atlanta Braves became the first major league pitcher to win four consecutive Cy Young Awards.

Nov. 13, 2003 - Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy S. Moore was removed from office when the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission determined that he violated his oath of office when he refused to obey a Federal court order to remove a granite display of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.