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| Union Admiral David Dixon Porter |
April 16, 1582 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma
founded the settlement of Salta, Argentina.
April 16, 1705 - Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac
Newton.
April 16, 1738 - Henry Clinton was born in Newfoundland,
Canada. In 1778, he was promoted to commander in chief of Britain's North
American forces.
April 16, 1825 – During his tour of the United States, after
stopping briefly at Duncan's Point, eight miles below Baton Rouge, the Marquis
de Lafayette is received in Baton Rouge for a reception and banquet, leaving
just before nightfall.
April 16, 1844 – Nobel Prize-winning novelist Anatole France
was born in Paris.
April 16, 1862 – During the Civil War, Tuscumbia in Colbert
County, Ala. was occupied by Federal forces.
April 16, 1862 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis
approved a conscription act for white males between the ages of 18 and 35.
April 16, 1862 – During the Civil War, the Battle at Lee's
Mills was fought in York County and Newport News, Virginia.
April 16, 1862 – During the Civil War, the District of
Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of
Columbia, became law.
April 16, 1863 – During the Civil War Siege of Vicksburg,
Miss. 12 ships led by Union Admiral David Dixon Porter moved through heavy
Confederate artillery fire on approach to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Porter only
lost one ship and two barges.
April 16, 1865 – At 10 a.m., Union Col. O.H. LaGrange, with
a large detachment of Wilson’s Raiders, attacked and captured Fort Tyler, a
Confederate fort on the west bank of the Chattahoochee River, just east of
Lanett in Chambers County, Ala.
April 16, 1865 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were
fought at Crawford, Girard and Opelika, Ala.
April 16, 1866 - A leaking crate of nitroglycerin in San
Francisco exploded, leveling a Wells Fargo office and all surrounding
buildings.
April 16, 1890 – Gertrude Chandler Warner, the creator of
the “Boxcar Children” series, was born in Putnam, Conn.
April 16, 1903 – Pro Baseball Hall of Fame right fielder
Paul Waner was born in Harrah, Okla. He went on to play for the Pittsburgh
Pirates, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Boston Braves and the New York Yankees. He
was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1952.
April 16, 1908 – Natural Bridges National Monument was
established in Utah.
April 16, 1915 – In Monroe County, Alabama’s Weatherford community,
H.M. Godwin and his work crew “laid the last timbers and drove the finishing
bolt” into the new bridge across the “old Joiner ford” on Little River, which
separated Monroe and Baldwin counties. “The material used for the entire
construction was gotten within a mile of the site cut by a six horse power
Witte engine and just one month from the day the work began, the bridge was
turned over to the Commissioners.”
April 16, 1918 – During World War I, Army Pvt. David F.
Wilson of Florala, Ala. was killed in action.
April 16, 1921 – A fire did slight damage to the home of
G.W. Stuckey on this Sunday afternoon, according to The Evergreen Courant.
April 16, 1922 – English novelist Kingsly Amis was born in
Clapham, South London, England.
April 16, 1930 – Essayist and short-story writer Carol Bly
was born in Duluth, Minn.
April 16, 1935 – Lamar County, Ala. native Terry Moorer made
his Major League debut with the St. Louis Cardinals, taking the field as an
outfielder.
April 16, 1936 – The Evergreen Courant reported that the
South Alabama (Baseball) League had been reorganized during a meeting in
Brewton, Ala. and Esco McCloud of Flomaton, Ala. was elected league president.
Representatives agreed to begin the 40-game season on April 23 with games on
Thursdays and Sundays, weather permitting. Attending the meeting from Evergreen
were Bill Hanna, R.C. Snowden and L.M. Chapman. L.D. King Jr. was to serve as
Evergreen’s manager with Hanna as his assistant.
April 16, 1936 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Glenn
H. Lawrence, a well known farmer who lived four miles south of Evergreen, Ala.
had been awarded the Purple Heart “for meritorious service” in World War I with
the 30th Division, 119th Infantry. His division was attached to the British and
while in the line of duty on Aug. 1, 1918, Lawrence’s skull was severely
fractured by a trench mortar shell on the Ypres front in Belgium. Lawrence
received the Purple Heart late because his service records had either been
misplaced or overlooked.
April 16, 1940 – Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians threw
the only Opening Day no-hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, beating
the Chicago White Sox, 1–0.
April 16, 1942 – Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Lonborg
was born in Santa Maria, Calif. He went on to play for the Boston Red Sox, the
Milwaukee Brewers and the Philadelphia Phillies.
April 16, 1943 - Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman accidentally
discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD.
April 16, 1949 – General Welch, 67, retired after 35 years
as the porter at the Louisville & Nashville Depot in Evergreen, Ala.
April 16, 1949 – Open house for both Lustrons houses in
Jackson, Ala. was held. Believed to possibly have been the first two built in
the state, they were later added to the National Register of Historic Places on
Feb. 24, 2000.
April 16, 1951 - A 725-pound black Angus-Hereford crossbreed
owned and shown by Dennis Bailey Jr. won the Grand Champion of the Sixth Annual
Conecuh County 4H-FFA Fat Calf Show held at the Conecuh Cooperative Stockyard.
The Reserve Champion was owned and shown by Dudley Ellis. An estimated crowd of
1,000 people attended the event.
April 16, 1951 – The Four Point Service Station in Evergreen, Ala., which was
owned and operated by J.S. Thornley, was burglarized between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The burglar got inside the building by prying the lock off the front door, blew
open the small iron safe and stole about $400 in cash. The burglary was
discovered around 8 p.m. by Mr. and Mrs. W.A. Fore, who were driving by and
noticed that the station’s door was open.
April 16, 1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned his
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” while incarcerated in Birmingham, Ala. for
protesting against segregation.
April 16, 1967 – Miller Baldwin allegedly shot and killed
Ruth Boykin at her home and also shot John H. Stallworth at the same time.
Baldwin was charged with first-degree murder and assault to murder and went to
trial in Conecuh County, Ala. on Sept. 25, 1967.
April 16, 1968 - Major league baseball's longest night game
was played when the Houston Astros defeated the New York Mets, 1-0. The
24-inning game took six hours, six minutes to play.
April 16, 1979 - Alabama native Edward O. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize in the General Non-Fiction category for his book, “On Human Nature.” Wilson was born in Birmingham, and lived in Mobile, Brewton, and Decatur, before attending the University of Alabama, where he studied biology. He earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and went on to an internationally recognized career in the sciences, receiving more than sixty other awards and honors, including another Pulitizer Prize in 1991 for “The Ants.”
April 16, 1985 - Mickey Mantle was reinstated after being banned from baseball for several years.
April 16, 1989 – Pro Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder and umpire Jocko Conlan passed away at the age of 89 in Scottsdale, Ariz. He played his entire career for the Chicago White Sox. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.
April 16, 1994 - Alabama author Ralph Ellison died in New York, N.Y.
April 16, 2003 - Alabama author John Craig Stewart died in Pisgah Forest, N.C.
April 16, 2007 - Alabama author Natasha Trethewey was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book, “Native Guard.”
April 16, 2007 - A combined Aruban–Dutch team began pursuing
the investigation of the disappearance of Mountain Brook, Alabama’s Natalee
Holloway in Aruba.
April 16, 2007 – Cynthia Tucker of Monroeville, Ala.
received Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work at The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. Received for “her courageous, clear-headed columns that
evince a strong sense of morality and persuasive knowledge of the community.”
April 16, 2007 - Alabama journalist Brett Blackledge of The Birmingham News was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for exposure of corruption in the
state’s two-year college system.
April 16, 2009 - Opening Day took place at the new Yankee
Stadium.
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