Today in History for June 2, 2015

U.S. President Grover Cleveland

June 2, 1537 - Pope Paul III banned the enslavement of Indians.

June 2, 1692 – Bridget Bishop became the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. She was found guilty and hanged on June 10.

June 2, 1774 – The Quartering Act was enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns or other buildings if suitable quarters were not provided.

June 2, 1774 – English-Australian explorer William Lawson was born in Middlesex, England. He was an explorer of New South Wales, Australia who co-discovered a passage inland through the Blue Mountains from Sydney.

June 2, 1776 - Major General John Thomas died of smallpox.

June 2, 1777 - The British captured Fort Ticonderoga.

June 2, 1815 - Philip Kearny was born in New York City. He was killed on Sept. 1, 1862, while behind Confederate lines at Chantilly, Va. General Robert E. Lee returned Kearny's body under a flag of truce.

June 2, 1838 – Confederate soldier Bright Waters was born in Burnt Corn, Ala. He enlisted at Bells Landing on July 28, 1861 and served with the Monroe Guards. He was taken prisoner at Gettysburg and was later exchanged. He was wounded near Fredericksburg on May 19, 1864 and was discharged. He is buried in Mt. Pleasant Methodist Cemetery at Skinnerton.

June 2, 1840 – English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Bockhampton, Dorset. His books include “Far From the Madding Crowd” (1874), “The Return of the Native” (1878), “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” (1891) and “Judge the Obscure” (1895).

June 2, 1847 - Confederate heroine Emma Sansom was born in Social Circle, Ga. Around 1852, she and her family moved to just outside Gadsden, Ala.

June 2, 1864 – Pvt. John L. Nixon was killed in the Battle of Cold Harbor, Va. Earlier in the war, he enlisted with Co. D of the 5th Alabama Infantry. Co. D became Co. C after reorganization on April 27, 1862 under Capt. Thomas Mercer Riley.

June 2, 1864 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant prepared for a major assault along the entire Confederate front. He attacked the next day.

June 2, 1865 - In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signed the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith's surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history. The war that cost 620,000 American lives was over.

June 2, 1883 - The first baseball game under electric lights was played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

June 2, 1886 - Grover Cleveland became the second U.S. president to get married while in office. He was the first to have a wedding in the White House.

June 2, 1896 - Guglieimo Marconi's radio telegraphy device was patented in Great Britain.

June 2, 1897 - Mark Twain, at age 61, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying "the report of my death was an exaggeration." He was responding to the rumors that he had died.

June 2, 1907 – Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West was born in Boston, Mass.

June 2, 1910 - Pygmies were discovered by explorers in Dutch New Guinea.

June 2, 1911 – W.B. Coker, who lived a few miles west of Evergreen, Ala., left at The Evergreen Courant’s office the first cotton bloom reported in Conecuh County for the 1911 season.

June 2, 1911 – During the night, several casks of beer and three cases of liquor were stolen from one of the lower rooms of the Covington County Jail in Andalusia, Ala. The booze had been seized by Sheriff Livings and stored there for safekeeping.

June 2, 1913 – Comic novelist Barbara Pym was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, England.

June 2, 1915 – The final day of Monroe County High School’s four-day fourth-annual commencement exercises continued on this Wednesday with baseball games between MCHS and Finchburg at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in Monroeville, Ala. Graduation exercises began at 8 p.m. with the address delivered by Dr. W.M. Murray of Brewton.

June 2, 1915 – Southwest Alabama Agricultural School graduation exercises were scheduled to be held at the Conecuh County Courthouse at 8 p.m. in Evergreen, Ala. Congressman S.H. Dent was scheduled to deliver the commencement address. Earlier that day, a baseball game between the school and Brewton was scheduled to be played.

June 2, 1915 – The Evergreen Courant reported that the “new Croom building” was now complete. The ground floor was to be occupied by J.H. Dey and the second floor was to be used as a Phythian and Woodmen hall.

June 2, 1918 – Kathryn Tucker Windham, who lived in Thomasville as a child and worked in Camden for the Area Agency on Aging, was born in Selma, Ala.

June 2, 1919 – During World War I, Army Sgt. Dewey E. Rayboun of Thomasville, Ala. “died from disease.”

June 2, 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

June 2, 1926 – The Evergreen Courant reported that the “new highway” between Evergreen and McKenzie was “rapidly nearing completion.” Grading work had reached the intersection of Main Street.

June 2, 1926 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Edwin C. Page had recently completed his “academic course at the University” and would begin the study of law next fall.

June 2, 1931 – Australian politician Gerald Beresford Ponsonby Peacocke was born. He went on to serve as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

June 2, 1935 - George Herman "Babe" Ruth announced that he was retiring from baseball.

June 2, 1935 – Novelist Carol Shields was born in Oak Park, Ill. Her 1993 novel, “Stone Diaries,” won the Pulitzer Prize.

June 2, 1941 – The first cotton bloom of the season arrived at The Courant on this Monday and was sent by E.A. Andrews of Evergreen, Ala., Rt. C.

June 2, 1941 – National Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman Lou Gehrig died at the age of 37 in New York City of the degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He played his entire career (1923-1939) for the New York Yankees and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1939.

June 2, 1943 – Aliceville, Alabam's World War II prisoner-of-war camp received its first contingent of captured German soldiers. By the end of the week, Aliceville housed 3,000 prisoners. Nearly 5,000 POWs eventually would be imprisoned in the facility, the largest of four such camps in Alabama.

June 2, 1955 – Former Evergreen Courant editor and publisher Lamar W. Matkin passed away at the age of 79 and is buried at Pine Crest Cemetery in Mobile, Ala.

June 2, 1959 - Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox got his 2,500th hit of his career.

June 2, 1966 Surveyor I soft landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photos.

June 2, 1983 – Leroy, Ala. native and Oakland A’s first baseman Kelvin Moore appeared in his final Major League Baseball game.

June 2, 1985 - Tommy Sandt was ejected from a major-league baseball game before the national anthem was played. He had complained to the umpire about a call against his team the night before.

June 2, 1990 - Randy Johnson achieved the first no-hitter in Seattle Mariner history.

June 2, 1990 - The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawned 66 confirmed tornadoes across four states, starting on this date.

June 2, 1993 – National Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman Johnny Mize passed away in Demorest, Ga. at the age of 80. During his career, he played for the St. Louis Cardinals, the New York Giants and the New York Yankees. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981.

June 2, 1995 - Hideo Nomo got his first major league victory.

June 2, 1996 - Tim Belcher of the Kansas City Royals won his 100th career game.

June 2, 1997 – In Denver, Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He was executed four years later.

June 2, 2000 - Fred McGriff of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays became the 31st major league player to hit 400 career home runs.

June 2, 2003 - In Seville, Spain, a chest containing the supposed remains of Christopher Columbus were exhumed for DNA tests to determine whether the bones were really those of the explorer. The tests were aimed at determining if Colombus was currently buried in Spain's Seville Cathedral or in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.