Today in History for Jan. 1, 2015

John Bankhead Magruder

Jan. 1, 404 AD - The last gladiator battle was fought in Rome.

Jan. 1, 1764 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a prominent Freemason, played for the Royal Family at Versailles in France.

Jan. 1, 1788 – The first edition of London’s oldest daily newspaper, The Times of London, previously named The Daily Universal Register, was published.

Jan. 1, 1800 – John Hill Dailey was born in Ohio. He came to Alabama as a young man and first settled at Belleville. A few years later, he moved to Tunnel Springs, where he became an extensive planter and owner of many slaves. He passed away at the age of 91.

Jan. 1, 1808 - The U.S. banned the importation of slaves from Africa.

Jan. 1, 1825 – During his tour of the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette attended a banquet hosted by the U.S. Congress.

Jan. 1, 1836 – David People was given a license to sell whiskey and keep a tavern in Monroe County, Ala. for one year.

Jan. 1, 1863 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves in the rebel states and Confederate territory were free.

Jan. 1, 1863 - Confederate troops under General John Bankhead Magruder captured Galveston, Texas.

Jan. 1, 1889 - Friedrich Nietzsche was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown after seeing a horse whipped by a cab driver.

Jan. 1, 1892 - Ellis Island Immigrant Station formally opened in New York.

Jan. 1, 1895 - J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI, was born in Washington, D.C.

Jan. 1, 1900 – The Louisville & Nashville rail line between Pine Apple and Repton, Ala. was completed.

Jan. 1, 1900 - Alabama ushered in 1900 with cold temperatures and little fanfare. Snow was recorded in Birmingham and Montgomery at the start of the holiday weekend and freezing temperatures continued to Mon., Jan. 1. Most citizens did not celebrate the start of the 20th century until 1901 and The Birmingham Age-Herald remarked “the first day of the last year of the nineteenth century dawned dull enough in Birmingham.”

Jan. 1, 1901 - Alabama newspapers welcomed a new year and a new century. Declaring January 1, 1901, as the first day of the 20th Century (and not January 1, 1900), the Montgomery Journal predicted that “Montgomery can well afford to welcome the year and the century with enthusiasm.” Likewise, the Birmingham Age-Herald carried a prominent front-page cartoon with a depiction of Father Time greeting the twin babies of the new year and the new century.

Jan. 1, 1902 - The first Tournament of Roses (later the Rose Bowl) collegiate football game was played in Pasadena, Calif. This was the first college football bowl game, and Michigan beat Stanford, 49-0.

Jan. 1, 1906 – Medal of Honor recipient Richmond Pearson Hobson of Greensboro, the “Hero of the Merrimac,” was scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Conecuh County Courthouse in Evergreen, Ala.

Jan. 1, 1908 – For the first time, a ball was dropped in New York City's Times Square to signify the start of the New Year at midnight.

Jan. 1, 1912 – The annual meeting of Camp Capt. William Lee, No. 338, of the United Confederate Veterans was held and G.R. Boulware was re-elected camp commander. Other officers elected included M.B. Salter, sergeant major; Rev. J.D. Wright, chaplain; Dr. W.B. Shaver, surgeon. Delegates to the next encampment were W.F. Tomlinson, J.T. Fincher and J.W. Cook.

Jan. 1, 1913 – The parcel post system was put into operation at every post office in the U.S. Under this system, parcels weighing up to 11 pounds were transported by mail.

Jan. 1, 1915 – A meeting of Camp William Lee, No. 338, was scheduled to be held. It was said to be the 24th Annual reunion of the United Confederate Veterans of Camp Wm. Lee, No. 338.

Jan. 1, 1919 - J.D. Salinger, the author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” was born in New York City.

Jan. 1, 1925 – H.P. Lovecraft’s wife of just 10 months, Sonia Haft Greene, went to Cleveland, Ohio to take a job there and Lovecraft moved into a single apartment near the seedy Brooklyn area called Red Hook. The couple divorced in 1929.

Jan. 1, 1926 – Coach Wallace Wade’s University of Alabama football team, the first southern team to be honored with an invitation to the Rose Bowl, beat the University of Washington, 20-19, in Pasadena, Calif. This was the first of six Rose Bowl appearances for Alabama and the first time a southern football team was invited to play in a national bowl game. That year’s Rose Bowl was also carried from coast to coast on network radio for the first time.

Jan. 1, 1933 - Miami defeated Manhattan, 7-0, in the first ever Orange Bowl, which was then called the Festival of Palms Bowl.

Jan. 1, 1935 – Tulane beat Temple, 20-14, in the first ever Sugar Bowl. The game was played at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

Jan. 1, 1935 - The El Paso All-Stars beat the Ranger (Texas), 25-21, in the first ever Sun Bowl, which was played in the El Paso High School stadium.

Jan. 1, 1936 – In Lovecraftian fiction, despite the high quality of care given to the patients at Oakdeene Sanitarium, the Sanitarium is best remembered for the scandal caused by the death of some inmates on this night. This facility first appeared in 1977’s “The Horror at Oakdeene” by Brian Lumley.

Jan. 1, 1936 - The "New York Herald Tribune" began microfilming its current issues on this date.

Jan. 1, 1937 – TCU beat Marquette, 16-6, in the first ever Cotton Bowl in Dallas Texas.

Jan. 1, 1939 – The new Commercial Hotel, which had been under construction since mid-summer, was scheduled to open in Monroeville, Ala. The 30-room hotel was owned by Mrs. W.B. Strong.

Jan. 1, 1953 - Legendary singer-songwriter Hank Williams died at the age of twenty-nine near Oak Hill, West Virginia. Over 20,000 people attended his funeral in Montgomery, Ala. Williams was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 and received the Alabama Music Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement award for Performing Achievement in 1985.

Jan. 1, 1954 - The Rose Bowl and the Cotton Bowl were shown in color for the first time.

Jan. 1, 1959 - Fidel Castro’s forces overthrew the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and seized power in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution.

Jan. 1, 1961 - Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Mich. was renamed Tigers Stadium.

Jan. 1, 1963 – Lee Roy Jordan of Excel was named the MVP of the Orange Bowl, a game in which Bear Bryant’s 9-1 Alabama Crimson Tide beat 8-2 Oklahoma, 17-0, in Miami, Fla. With President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in attendance, Jordan recorded an Alabama bowl record of 31 tackles in the victory. The game was broadcast nationally on ABC.

Jan. 1, 1967 - Sonny & Cher were banned from the Tournament of Roses for supporting Sunset Strip rioters.

Jan. 1, 1976 – In connection with the “Amityville Horror” incident, cloven hoofprints attributed to an enormous pig appeared in the snow outside the house. The claim of cloven hoofprints in the snow on January 1, 1976 was later rejected by other researchers, because a check on the weather records showed that there had been no snow in Amityville on the day in question.

Jan. 1, 1976 - A radio version of author Ambrose Bierce's story "One of the Missing" was broadcast as part of the series The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre.

Jan. 1, 1978 – On this night, the Conecuh County Rescue Squad located and rescued lost hunter Dennis Monk, who was reported missing by his hunting companion about 6:15 p.m. in the Murder Creek Swamp area. Monk was found around 10:30 p.m. and was brought out of the swamp around 1 a.m. on Jan. 2. Alabama State Troopers, Conecuh County Sheriff’s Deputies and Evergreen police assisted in the search.

Jan. 1, 1978 – The Dickinson House, located on Dickinson Avenue in Grove Hill, was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.

Jan. 1, 1992 - The ESPN Radio Network was officially launched.

Jan. 1, 1994 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect.

Jan. 1, 2001 - The second phase of Alabama’s mandatory liability insurance requirements began as the Alabama Department of Revenue started mailing insurance verification survey forms to vehicle owners.

Jan. 1, 2006 – Monroeville, Ala. was featured in National Geographic magazine in a story titled “To Catch a Mockingbird” by Cathy Newman with photos by Michael Nichols.

Jan. 1, 2007 - Darrent Williams of the Denver Broncos was killed in a drive-by shooting outside a nightclub in Denver, Colo.

Jan. 1, 2011 - The new Oak Island Treasure Act came into effect and allowed for treasure hunting to continue on the island under the terms of a license issued by the Minister of Natural Resources.