Count Claus von Stauffenberg |
July 11, 1405 – Ming admiral Zheng He set sail to explore
the world for the first time.
July 11, 1576 – Martin Frobisher sighted Greenland.
July 11, 1616 – Samuel de Champlain returned to Quebec.
July 11, 1656 - Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two Englishwomen, became the first Quakers to immigrate to the American colonies when the ship carrying them landed at Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The pair came from Barbados, where Quakers had established a center for missionary work.
July 11, 1767 – John Quincy Adams, the son of the second
U.S. President, John Adams, was born in Braintree, Mass. He would go on to
become the sixth president of the United States in 1825.
July 11, 1780 - In South Carolina, Philadelphia lawyer
Captain Christian Huck and 130 Loyalist cavalry arrived at William Bratton's
plantation. The next morning at neighboring Williamson's plantation they were
attacked and defeated by 500 Patriot militiamen led by William Bratton.
July 11, 1782 - The British evacuated Georgia as British
Royal Governor Sir James Wright, several civil officials and military officers
left the city of Savannah and headed toward Charleston, S.C. As part of the
British evacuation, a group consisting of British regulars led by General
Alured Clarke traveled to New York, while Colonel Thomas Brown led a mixed
group of rangers and Indians to St. Augustine, Florida. The remaining British
soldiers were transported to the West Indies aboard the frigate HMS Zebra and
the sloop of war HMS Vulture.
July 11, 1789 - Lafayette proposed a declaration of rights to
the French National Assembly that he had modeled on the American Declaration of
Independence. He would visit Claiborne, Ala. in April 1825.
July 11, 1798 - The U.S. Marine Corps, which had been
disbanded after the American Revolutionary War, was formally re-established
when "An Act for Establishing a Marine Corps" was passed by the U.S.
Congress. The act also created the U.S. Marine Band. The Marines were first
commissioned by the Continental Congress on Nov. 10, 1775.
July 11, 1804 – Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded
his long-time political antagonist, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander
Hamilton, during an “affair of honor” at 7 a.m. on the dueling grounds near
Weehawken, N.J. Hamilton, a leading Federalist and the chief architect of
America’s political economy, died the following day. Charged with murder in New
York and New Jersey, Burr, still vice president, returned to Washington, D.C.,
where he finished his term immune from prosecution.
July 11, 1831 – The Federal government granted an 80-acre
tract of land to Monroe County, Ala. Probate Judge Henry W. Taylor for a town to be
established at the Crossroads. Monroeville’s present-day town square rests in
about the center of this original land grant.
July 11, 1834 – Artist and painter James Abbott McNeill
Whistler was born in Lowell, Mass.
July 11, 1861 - Union troops under General George B.
McClellan scored another major victory in the struggle for western Virginia at
the Battle of Rich Mountain. The Yankee success secured the region and ensured the
eventual creation of West Virginia.
July 11, 1862 - U.S. President Lincoln handed over the job
of general-in-chief to General Henry W. "Old Bains" Halleck.
July 11, 1863 - Union General Quincy Gillmore attacked
Battery Wagner on Morris Island near Charleston, S.C. The attack was easily
repulsed. A much larger assault took place on July 18, but the Confederates did
not evacuate until Sept. 7, 1863.
July 11, 1864 – During the American Civil War, at the Battle
of Fort Stevens, Confederate forces under General Jubal Early attempted to
invade Washington, D.C. They turned back the next day.
July 11, 1882 – American miner, explorer and park ranger
James Larkin White was born in Mason County, Texas. He is best remembered as
the discoverer, early promoter and explorer of what is known today as Carlsbad
Caverns in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico.
July 11, 1897 – Future U.S. Representative from Alabama
George M. Grant was born in Louisville, Ala.
July 11, 1897 – Salomon August Andrée left Spitsbergen to
attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon. He later crashed and died.
July 11, 1899 – Elwyn Brooks White, better known as E.B.
White, was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y. His best known book is 1952’s
“Charlotte’s Web.”
July 11, 1909 – Owassa’s baseball team won both games of a
doubleheader against Sugar Hill.
July 11, 1914 - In his major league debut, George Herman
"Babe" Ruth pitched seven strong innings to lead the Boston Red Sox
over the Cleveland Indians, 4-3. Ruth gave up just five hits over the first six
innings. In the seventh, the Indians managed two runs on three singles and a
sacrifice and Ruth was relieved. His hitting prowess, however, was not on
display that first night – he went 0-for-2 at the plate.
July 11, 1914 – The Franklin baseball team played a double
header against the Gulf, Florida and Alabama Railroad baseball team. Franklin
won both games, 3-1 and 6-1.
July 11, 1915 – The “new” Methodist Church was dedicated at
Burnt Corn, Ala.
July 11, 1915 – The Hon. M.F. Brooks, Escambia County’s
probate judge, died on this Sunday at his home in Brewton, Ala. “following a long
and painful illness.”
July 11, 1919 – Around 5 p.m. on this Friday, a hail storm
and “cloud burst” passed over Leeman L. Lee’s farm, six miles northwest of
Castleberry, Ala. and severely damaged his corn and cotton crop. Estimated
damages totaled $4,000 to $5,000. The hail was so heavy that it “actually
bursted melons open.”
July 11, 1930 - The thermometer at the Evergreen, Ala.
weather observation station registered high mark of 107.5 degrees on both July
11 and July 12, 1930.
July 11, 1930 – Literary critic Harold Bloom was born in New
York City.
July 11, 1934 - U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
became the first American chief executive to travel through the Panama Canal
while in office.
July 11, 1944 - Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army
officer, transported a bomb to Adolf Hitler’s headquarters in Berchtesgaden, in
Bavaria, with the intention of assassinating the Fuhrer. Stauffenberg had been
summoned to Berchtesgaden to report to Hitler on the current military
situation. The plan was to use the bomb on July 15, but at the last minute,
Hitler was called away to his headquarters at Rastenburg, in East Prussia.
July 11, 1947 – Forty-one men were formally inducted into
the Monroeville, Ala. Kiwanis Club on its first ever Charter Night nearly two months
after the club was formed.
July 11, 1955 - The U.S. Air Force Academy was dedicated in
Colorado at Lowry Air Base.
July 11, 1960 – J.B. Lippincott & Co. published Harper
Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The novel has sold more than 30 million copies
since it was published, and has been translated into 40 languages.
July 11, 1967 – Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-American
author Jhumpa Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri in London.
July 11, 1972 – On his afternoon, eight-year-old Terry
Harrison of Louisiana, Mo. described seeing a “monster” that was “at least
seven feet tall with a pumpkin-shaped head… covered with shaggy black hair” and
was said to have startled the boy with a “low, throaty growl.” His sister,
Doris, looked at a bathroom window and saw it standing “up the hill from the
house.” Their parents found a stamped down circle, but no other evidence of the
giant forest creature, which became known as “Momo,” short for the “Missouri
Monster.” Later that night, about 50 people at the Harrison home heard “the
thing roar.”
July 11, 1972 - From his wheelchair, George C. Wallace of
Alabama, who’d been shot five times and paralyzed in May 1972, spoke at the Democratic
National Convention in Miami Beach, Fla.
July 11, 1979 – America's first space station, the abandoned
Skylab, was destroyed as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, scattering
debris over the Indian Ocean and sparsely populated Western Australia.
July 11, 1979 – Evergreen, Ala. weather reporter Earl
Windham reported 1.90 inches of rain on this day.
July 11, 1980 – In a D.B. Cooper copycat incident, Glenn K.
Tripp seized Northwest flight 608 at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, demanding
$600,000, two parachutes and the assassination of his boss. After a 10-hour
standoff, he was apprehended, but on January 21, 1983—while still on
probation—he hijacked the same Northwest flight, this time en route, and
demanded to be flown to Afghanistan. When the plane landed in Portland he was
shot and killed by FBI agents.
July 11, 1985 – The Tristram Bethea House (also known as
Pleasant Ridge) at Canton Bend in Wilcox County, Ala., was added to the
National Register of Historic Places.
July 11, 1985 - Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros became the
first major league pitcher to earn 4,000 strikeouts in a career.
July 11, 1987 - Bo Jackson signed a contract to play
football for the L.A. Raiders for five years. He was also continued to play
baseball for the Kansas City Royals.
July 11, 1990 - Against the Orioles, Bo Jackson performed
his famous "wall run," when he caught a ball approximately two to
three strides away from the wall. As he caught the ball at full tilt, Jackson
looked up and noticed the wall and began to run up the wall, one leg reaching
higher as he ascended. He ran along the wall almost parallel to the ground, and
came down with the catch, to avoid impact and the risk of injury from the
fence.
July 11, 1995 - Mickey Mantle made his final public
appearance. It was to increase awareness of organ donation programs.
July 11, 1999 - A U.S. Air Force jet flew over the Antarctic
and dropped off emergency medical supplies for Dr. Jerri Nelson after she had
discovered a lump in her breast. Nelson was at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole
Research Center.
July 11, 2000 - The video "Jaws," the Anniversary
Collector's Edition, was released.
July 11, 2005 – The Ward-Witherington Cemetery and the
Witherington Cemetery in Conecuh County, Ala. were added to the Alabama
Historic Cemetery Register.
July 11, 2008 – “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” was released
in theatres.
July 11, 2009 – Alabama Marine Police Officer Jeremy Alford
spotted a 3- to 4-foot-long bull shark in the Alabama River about 80 miles from
the Gulf of Mexico, shortly after he and follow officer Daniel Boutwell checked
a boater south of the Claiborne Lock & Dam in Monroe County. The shark was
swimming along the surface in the water, about seven feet deep, just south of
the dam.
July 11, 2009 – Bear Grylls was officially made Chief Scout
at Gilwell 24 in a handover event featuring Peter Duncan in front of a crowd of
over 3,000 Explorer Scouts. Grylls was the tenth person to hold the position
and the youngest Chief Scout since the role was created for Robert Baden-Powell
in 1920.
July 11, 2009 - Alabama author Paul Hemphill died in
Atlanta, Ga.
July 11, 2010 - After a two-year manhunt, 19-year-old Colton
Harris-Moore of Washington state was arrested following a high-speed boat chase
in the Bahamas. Harris-Moore was suspected of stealing an airplane in Indiana
and crash-landing it in the Bahamas the week before. Nicknamed the “Barefoot
Bandit” for going shoeless during some of his alleged crimes, the teen was a
suspect in scores of other burglaries in the United States and Canada, where he
was accused of swiping everything from potato chips to credit cards, small
planes, boats and cars.
No comments:
Post a Comment