April 18, 1775 – During the American Revolution, the British
advancement by sea began and British troops began marching toward Concord,
Mass. with orders to destroy the armaments stockpiled in the town and to
capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock. American revolutionaries Paul Revere,
William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode though the towns of Massachusetts giving
the warning that the Regulars were coming out. Later, the phrase "the
British are coming" was attributed to Revere even though it is unlikely he
used that wording.
April 18, 1818 - A regiment of Indians and blacks were
defeated at the Battle of Suwann in Florida, ending the first Seminole War.
April 18, 1831 – The University of Alabama formally opened
its doors. Fifty-two students were accepted that first day, but by the end of
the session the student body had swelled to nearly one hundred. The faculty was
made up of four men including the Reverend Alva Woods, who had been inaugurated
president of the university on April 12, 1831.
April 18, 1838 - The Wilkes' expedition to the South Pole
set sail.
April 18, 1840 – Philadelphia Baptist Church at Tunnel
Springs, Ala. organized with 12 members and with the Rev. John McWilliams as pastor.
John H. Dailey was the church’s first deacon, and Drury A. Randalson was named
clerk.
April 18, 1853 - William Rufus King, Alabama’s leading
nineteenth-century politician, died in Dallas County. King was a member of the
state’s first constitutional convention in 1819 and served for many years in
the U.S. Senate and as Minister to France in the 1840s. In 1852 King was elected
vice-president of the U.S. on the Democratic ticket with Franklin Pierce. King
took the oath of office in Havana, Cuba, where he had gone to recuperate from
ill health. King’s health did not improve and he returned to his plantation in
Dallas County to die, never actually serving as vice-president.
April 18, 1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee turned down an offer
to command the Union armies during the U.S. Civil War. Two days later he
resigned from the U.S. Army.
April 18, 1861 - Pro-Confederate volunteers threw rocks at
Pennsylvania troops as they changed trains in Baltimore, Md.
April 18, 1864 - Confederate General Samuel Maxey's troops
attacked and captured a Union forage wagon train at Poison Springs, Arkansas.
More than 300 Yankee troops were killed, wounded, or captured, while the
Confederates lost just 13 killed and 81 wounded.
April 18, 1864 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought
in the vicinity of Decatur, Ala.
April 18, 1865 - Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston
surrendered to General William T. Sherman near Durham, N.C.
April 18, 1880 – Pro Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Sam
Crawford was born in Wahoo, Neb. He would go on to play for the Cincinnati Reds
and the Detroit Tigers. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1957.
April 18, 1882 – A devastating tornado hit Evergreen, Ala.
destroying every building except for the Episcopal Church.
April 18, 1902 - Alabama author and Poet Laureate William
Young Elliott was born in Leeds, Ala.
April 18, 1918 – During World War I, Army Pvt. Ollie Mims of
Jeddo in Monroe County, Ala. “died from disease.”
April 18, 1919 – A tree from the “battlefields of France”
was planted on the lawn of the Conecuh County Courthouse in Evergreen, Ala.
“This tree will ever speak to us of those noble sons going from our homes and
it will ever be a tree of interest and pride to the people of Conecuh.”
April 18, 1921 - Fire did slight damage to the home of Lewis
Cook on this Tuesday morning, according to The Evergreen Courant.
April 18, 1923 – Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth
Built," opened in the Bronx, N.Y. The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox,
4-1. John Phillip Sousa's band played the National Anthem.
April 18, 1925 – In H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional work, “The
Call of Cthulhu,” an article appeared in the Sydney Bulletin, an Australian
newspaper, on this day that reported the discovery of a derelict ship in the
Pacific Ocean with only one survivor—Norwegian sailor Gustaf Johansen, second
mate on the schooner Emma, which sailed from Auckland, New Zealand.
April 18, 1925 – Poet Bob Kaufman was born in New Orleans,
La.
April 18, 1938 - Superman made his debut when he appeared in
the first issue of Action Comics. (Cover date June 1938)
April 18, 1938 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt threw out
the first ball preceding the season opener between the Washington Senators and
the Philadelphia Athletics.
April 18, 1956 - Ed Rommel became the first umpire to wear
glasses during a major league baseball game. The game was between the New York
Yankees and the Washington Senators.
April 18, 1958 – The U.S. Government dropped its treason
charges against 72-year-old poet Ezra Pound.
April 18, 1960 – Huntsville, Ala. native Don Mincher made
his Major League debut with the Washington Senators.
April 18, 1960 – Conecuh County’s Annual Fat Calf Show began
at 9 a.m. at the Conecuh Cooperative Stockyard on North Main Street in
Evergreen, Ala.
April 18, 1966 – Betty Baggett of Repton High School won top
Grand Champion honors at the 21st Annual Conecuh County 4H & FFA Fat Calf
Show. Jerald Padgett of Evergreen High School was the Reserve Champion.
April 18, 1970 - Alabama author Lonnie Coleman's play “A Place for Polly” opened on Broadway.
April 18, 1977 - Eddie Murray hit his first career home run.
April 18, 1981 – The longest professional baseball game ever
began in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The game was suspended at 4:00 the next
morning and finally completed on June 23.
April 18, 1982 - The Atlanta Braves set a National League
record when they won their eleventh straight game from the start of the season.
April 18, 1987 - Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies
hit his 500th career home run.
April 18, 1995 - Joe Montana retired from the NFL.
April 18, 2002 – Sparta Academy’s Mary Hamilton Robinson
became the first recipient of the Wayne Peacock Sportsmanship Award at Sparta
Academy’s Sports Banquet in the school gym in Evergreen, Ala.
April 18, 2002 – Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor
Heyerdahl passed away at the age 87 in Colla Micheri, Italy. He is best
remembered for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed
5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South
America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that
ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between
separate cultures.
April 18, 2003 – The Ackerville Baptist Church of Christ in
Ackerville in Wilcox County, Ala. was added to the National Register of
Historic Places.
April 18, 2005 - It was announced the NFL's "Monday
Night Football" would leave ABC in 2006 for a new home with ESPN.
"Monday Night Football" had been on ABC since 1970.
April 18, 2007 – Searcy School near Greenville, Ala. was
added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.
April 18, 2007 – The First National Bank of Florala
(Fidelity Masonic Lodge No. 685) in Florala and the Bethel Primitive Baptist
Church and Cemetery in Babbie in Covington County, Ala. were added to the
Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.
April 18, 2011 – Before a standing-room-only crowd, the
Conecuh County Commission approved Conecuh Woods’ application to construct a
landfill between Repton and Range by a 3-2 vote during a special meeting at the
Conecuh County Government Center in Evergreen, Ala. Commissioners Wendell Byrd,
Jerold Dean and Leonard Millender cast the deciding ‘yes’ votes in favor of the
landfill application. Commissioners Hugh Barrow and D.K. Bodiford cast ‘no’
votes against the application.
April 18, 2011 - Earl Lavon Thompson, 63, of Evergreen, Ala.
was fatally injured when he was struck by a train at 9:43 a.m. at the railroad
crossing near the intersection of West Front Street and Belleville Street in
Evergreen, Ala.
April 18, 2014 – Sixteen people are killed in an avalanche
on Mount Everest.
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