Today in History for Aug. 30, 2017

Grave of Rev. Pitt S. Milner in Georgiana, Ala.

Aug. 30, 30 B.C. - Queen Cleopatra of Egypt killed herself with a snake she had smuggled into her chamber where she was held captive by Octavian, formerly the political rival of her lover Mark Antony. Octavian had defeated Cleopatra and Antony at the Battle of Actium and had taken Cleopatra prisoner. When Cleopatra learned that Octavian planned to parade her as part of his triumphant return to Rome, she planned her own suicide.

Aug. 30, 1645 - American Indians and the Dutch made a peace treaty at New Amsterdam, which became known as New York.

Aug. 30, 1682 - William Penn sailed from England and later established the colony of Pennsylvania in America.

Aug. 30, 1776 - British troops occupied American fortifications on Long Island. George Washington and his 9,000 men had evacuated to Manhattan overnight.

Aug. 30, 1776 - General George Washington gave the New York Convention three reasons for the retreat from Long Island. The reasons were the need to reunite his forces, the extreme fatigue of his soldiers and the lack of proper shelter from the weather.

Aug. 30, 1776 - General George Washington rejected British General William Howe's second letter of reconciliation.

Aug. 30, 1780 - General Benedict Arnold secretly promised to surrender the West Point fort to the British army.

Aug. 30, 1797 – “Frankenstein” author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in Somers Town, London.

Aug. 30, 1800 – Gabriel Prosser postponed a planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Va. but was arrested before he can make it happen.

Aug. 30, 1806 - New York City's second daily newspaper, the "Daily Advertiser," was published for the last time.

Aug. 30, 1813 – About 1,000 Creek Indians under the command of William Weatherford attacked Fort Mims in what is now Baldwin County, Ala., killing over 500 settlers (including over 250 armed militia) gathered there for protection. The attack caused fear and hysteria among frontier settlers, who quickly raised militia companies to fight the Indians in the Creek War of 1813-1814.

Aug. 30, 1825 – Creek chieftain William McIntosh was killed in Carroll County, Ga. by Creeks who believed he betrayed them in his role of getting treaties signed that ceded Creek lands to the U.S. government.

Aug. 30, 1832 – The post office at Walker’s Mill, Ala. (present day Monroeville) had its name officially changed to “Centerville.”

Aug. 30, 1833 – The post office at Centerville, Ala. had its name officially changed to “Monroeville” because there was already a town in Alabama named Centreville.

Aug. 30, 1836 – The city of Houston, Texas was founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen.

Aug. 30, 1861 – During the Civil War, General Freemont of “Pathfinder” fame issued an "Emancipation Proclamation" freeing slaves in Missouri. This was later revoked by President Lincoln.

Aug. 30, 1862 - Confederates defeated Union forces at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Va.

Aug. 30, 1862 – At the Battle of Richmond, Ky., Confederate troops under Edmund Kirby Smith soundly defeated a Union army under General Mahlon D. Manson at Richmond, Ky. Manson and his entire staff were captured. More than 4,300 of the 6,500 Federals were captured, including Manson and his entire staff. Confederate losses stood at 98 killed, 492 wounded, and 10 missing out of 6,800.

Aug. 30, 1862 – During the Civil War, a skirmish occurred near Larkinsville, Ala. in Jackson County.

Aug. 30, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought near Plymouth, N.C. and at Buckhannon, W.Va.

Aug. 30, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Shallow Ford, Ark. and at Scullyville, Okla.

Aug. 30, 1864 – During the Civil War, an action was fought at Flint River Bridge. Skirmishes were also fought near East Point, Ga.; near Dardanelle, Ark.; and near Smithfield, Va.

Aug. 30, 1868 – Minnie Lee “Miss Minnie” Robbins of Beatrice, Ala., who operated Robbins Hotel (built 1861) as “an elegant haven for commercial men,” was born.

Aug. 30, 1871 – Noble Prize-winning British physicist Ernest Rutherford was born in Brightwater, New Zealand. He is probably best known for developing a model of the atom, after discovering that most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in its tiny nucleus.

Aug. 30, 1873 – The Rev. Pitt Saunders Milner, founder of Georgiana, Ala., passed away at the age of 67. Born on July 31, 1806, he was buried in the Milner Cemetery in Georgiana. Milner’s daughter Anna died in 1857 and in her memory and in honor of his home state of Georgia, the City of Georgiana received its name.

Aug. 30, 1873 – Austrian explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht discovered the archipelago of Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Sea.

Aug. 30, 1885 - 13,000 meteors were seen in one hour near Andromeda.

Aug. 30, 1895 – Rufus Brown, “aged about 79 years” died near Monroeville, Ala. on this Friday night.

Aug. 30, 1905 – Baseball legend Ty Cobb made his Major League batting debut with the Detroit Tigers.

Aug. 30, 1906 – The Monroe Journal reported that Miss Callie Faulk, who had “a prosperous school” at Franklin, was visiting relatives in Monroeville that week.

Aug. 30, 1906 – The Monroe Journal reported that Miss Jennie Faulk had returned from St. Louis where she’d gone to purchase her line of fall hats and millinery.

Aug. 30, 1906 – The Monroe Journal reported that the Hudson ginnery started up the week before and would “probably be kept constantly busy from now until the close of the cotton season.” The first bale was turned out for C.E. Broughton whose farm was near Monroeville.

Aug. 30, 1906 – The Monroe Journal reported that Capt. Thos. S. Wiggins had returned from a few day’s sojourn at the Wilcox Mineral Springs.

Aug. 30, 1908 - Officials of the United Mine Workers (UMW) in Birmingham, Ala. called off a bitter coal strike, prompting The Birmingham News to declare that the result would be "Prosperity in the Birmingham District." Workers had walked out of the mines in early July to protest wage conditions, and almost two months of violence ensued. As many as 18,000 black and white workers had joined UMW, but resistance by employers, intervention by Gov. B. B. Comer, and public dissatisfaction broke the strike and debilitated UMW's strength in Birmingham for years.

Aug. 30, 1914 – During World War I, Germans defeated the Russians in the Battle of Tannenberg.

Aug. 30, 1917 – Vietnamese prison guards led by Trịnh Văn Cấn mutinied at the Thái Nguyên penitentiary against local French authority.

Aug. 30, 1917 – The Monroe Journal reported that city leaders were having another well drilled near the well sunk a few weeks before. It was hoped that with two wells a constant and adequate supply of water would be available.

Aug. 30, 1917 – The Monroe Journal reported that all arrangements had been perfected for the prompt and simultaneous opening of the public schools of the county on Oct. 1. A number of new buildings were in course of erection at more central points, a number of others enlarged and made more comfortable, while several had been granted an increased teaching force. The compulsory attendance law was to go into effect with the new school year and every effort was being made by the school authorities to meet the new situation.

Aug. 30, 1917 – The Monroe Journal reported that the County Board of Exemptions and local physicians had been busy for the last two days in the examination of 200 registrants under the second call of reserves.

Aug. 30, 1918 – National Baseball Hall of Fame left fielder Ted Williams was born in San Diego, Calif. He played his entire career for the Boston Red Sox and later managed the Washington Senators/Texas Rangers. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966.

Aug. 30, 1918 - The New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1-0, in a game that only took 57 minutes to play.

Aug. 30, 1918 - In Belfort, France, a small town near the German border, Colonel Arthur L. Conger of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) planted a copy of a false operational order for an impending Allied attack in a wastebasket; as intended, it was later found and removed by a German agent, resulting in the “Belfort Ruse.”

Aug. 30, 1925 – During the closing sermon at the end of a three-week revival in Andalusia, Ala., about 5,000 people in a “big, open air tabernacle” watched as 24 masked and white robed members of the Ku Klux Klan silently presented the Rev. Bob Jones with a $1,568 check from Andalusia Klan No. 29. The donation to Jones was believed to be “a record for the amount of such contributions.”

Aug. 30, 1925 – Children’s writer and illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff was born in Paris, France.

Aug. 30, 1943 – Cartoonist R. Crumb was born Robert Dennis Crumb in Philadelphia, Pa.

Aug. 30, 1944 – Journalist and humorist Molly Ivins was born in Monterey, Calif.

Aug. 30, 1949 - Colbert Wright, forest patrolman in the Frisco City area, suffered severe feet injuries when he fell from a tree near Excel. The patrolman, who was gathering seed for a nursery at the time, was hurt when a limb broke and plunged to the ground with him. Both feet were badly injured. He was taken to the Repton hospital soon after the accident, and was later moved to a Mobile hospital.

Aug. 30, 1965 – The State Department of Education announced that the Monroeville Junior College had officially been named Patrick Henry Junior College.

Aug. 30, 1965 - New York Mets Manager Casey Stengel announced his retirement, ending his 56-year career in professional baseball.

Aug. 30, 1966 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds hit home runs from both sides of the plate in a game against St. Louis.

Aug. 30, 1966 – The Beatles performed their final concert as a touring act at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

Aug. 30, 1966 - Hanoi Radio announced that Deputy Premier Le Thanh Nghi had signed an agreement with Peking whereby the People’s Republic of China would provide additional economic and technical aid to North Vietnam.

Aug. 30, 1967 – Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Aug. 30, 1969 - Ho Chi Minh’s reply to President Nixon’s letter of July 15 was received in Paris. Ho accused the United States of a “war of aggression” against the Vietnamese people, “violating our fundamental national rights” and warned that “the longer the war goes on, the more it accumulates the mourning and burdens of the American people.”

Aug. 30, 1970 - An estimated 6 million South Vietnamese casted ballots for 30 seats at stake in the Senate elections. While the voting was going on, Communist forces attacked at least 14 district towns, a provincial capital, and several polling places.

Aug. 30, 1972 - Sparta Academy was scheduled to begin the 1972-73 school year on this Wednesday at 8 a.m. Richard Brown was headmaster.

Aug. 30, 1976 – Major League Baseball relief pitcher Mike Koplove was born in Philadelphia, Pa. He went on to play for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Cleveland Indians.

Aug. 30, 1977 – NFL running back Shaun Alexander was born in Florence, Ky. He went on to play for the University of Alabama, the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Redskins.

Aug. 30, 1979 -  A "sungrazer" known as Comet Howard-Koomen-Michels collided into the sun, reportedly with the impact of one million hydrogen bombs.

Aug. 30, 1984 – The Central of Georgia Depot on Central Street in Andalusia, Ala. was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Aug. 30, 1985 – J.W. Weaver, Superintendent of the City Electrical Department in Evergreen, Ala., retired after 37 years of service to the City of Evergreen.

Aug. 30, 1985 – Lyeffion opened the 1985 football season by blasting Alabama Christian, 60-0, in Montgomery, Ala. Willie King led Lyeffion’s offense with eight carries for 240 yards and five touchdowns.

Aug. 30, 1985 – Evergreen High School beat Wilcox County High School, 26-0, in Camden, Ala.

Aug. 30-31, 1986 – A rodeo was scheduled to be held at the Lyeffion Arena on this Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. and 2 p.m., respectively. The ACA-approved rodeo was sponsored by the Lyeffion and Skinnerton Fire Departments. This approved rodeo was to consists of bull-riding, bare back and saddle bronc riding, calf roping, barrel racing, clown acts and steer dogging. Lois Reeves, Skip Stacey, Evelyn Pipkin and Larry Oswald were among the organizers.

Aug. 30, 1992 – The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ended with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities.

Aug. 30, 1994 - Oasis' first studio album, entitled "Definitely Maybe," was released.

Aug. 30, 1996 - An expedition to raise part of the Titanic failed when the nylon lines being used to raise part of the hull snapped.

Aug. 30, 2002 - The Major League Baseball Players Union and the team owners came to an agreement that avoided a player's strike set to begin on this day.

Aug. 30, 2003 – “My Life Without Me,” a movie version of Alabama author Nanci Kincaid's book “Pretending the Bed Is a Raft,” was released.

Aug. 30, 2007 – The final high school football game between Excel and Frisco City was played in Excel, Ala. Excel won, 22-14, closing out a series that is believed to have begun in 1921.