Today in History for July 16, 2015

'Shoeless Joe' Jackson

July 16, 1194 – Italian nun and saint Clare of Assisi was born in Assisi.

July 16, 1540 – The DeSoto Expedition arrived at the ancient Indian town of Coosa (Cosa, Coca), located on the east bank of Talladega Creek, 1-1/2 miles northeast of Childersburg in Talladega County, Ala. They departed on Aug. 20, 1540.

July 16, 1661 – Canadian captain, explorer, and politician Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville was born in Ville-Marie, New France. In addition to being a ship captain and explorer, d’Iberville was a soldier, colonial administrator, knight of the order of Saint-Louis, adventurer, privateer, trader, member of Compagnies Franches de la Marine and founder of the French colony of Louisiana of New France.

July 16, 1779 – During the American Revolutionary War, 1,200 light infantry of the Continental Army, one the orders of George Washington, seized a fortified British Army position, believed to be impregnable, in a midnight bayonet attack at the Battle of Stony Point. American Brigadier General Anthony Wayne led the successful attack and earned the moniker "Mad" Anthony Wayne. Fifteen Americans were killed and 83 were wounded while the British lost 94 killed and wounded and 472 captured.

July 16, 1790 – The District of Columbia was established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.

July 16, 1808 - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, two of the few white men who had actually seen the mysterious territory of the Far West, helped form a new company to exploit the region’s abundant fur-bearing animals. Among their partners were the experienced fur traders and businessmen Manuel Lisa, Pierre Choteau, and Auguste Choteau.

July 16, 1849 – Benjamin Franklin Riley, author of “History of Conecuh County, Alabama,” was born at Pineville in Monroe County, Ala.

July 16, 1861 – During the Civil War, at the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops began a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

July 16, 1861 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing George Brinton McClellan for his accomplishments in Virgina.

July 16, 1862 – During the Civil War, David Farragut was promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in United States Navy to hold an admiral rank.

July 16, 1863 – Anti-draft riots entered their fourth day in New York City in response to the Enrollment Act, which was enacted on March 3, 1863. Order was restored the next day when Union troops returned from Gettysburg. More than 1,000 people died and property damage topped $2 million.

July 16, 1872 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was born in Borge, Østfold, Norway. He led the Antarctic expedition (1910–12) that was the first to reach the South Pole on Dec. 14, 1911. In 1926 he was the first expedition leader to be recognized without dispute as having reached the North Pole.

July 16, 1887 – Baseball legend Joseph Jefferson “Shoeless Joe” Jackson was born in Pickens County, S.C. During his career, he played for the Philadelphia Athletics, the Cleveland Naps/Indians and the Chicago White Sox. An outfielder, he is best remembered for his performance on the field and for his alleged association with the Black Sox Scandal, in which members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series.

July 16, 1889 – Rube Burrow shot and killed Jewel, Ala. postmaster Moses J. Graves, 41, during a dispute over a package from a Chicago firm that made false beards and wigs. This incident launched Burrow into the national limelight as it was reported in The New York Sun, The New York Tribune and The Boston Daily Globe.

July 16, 1900 - Harper Councill Trenholm, president of Alabama State College from 1925 to 1962, was born in Tuscumbia. A graduate of Morehouse College and the University of Chicago, Trenholm served as instructor and director of the college extension program before assuming the presidency. During his long tenure Alabama State graduated its first four-year college class in 1932, developed a model teacher in-service program that served African-American teachers statewide, and began the legendary Turkey Day Classic football rivalry between Alabama State and Tuskegee Institute.

July 16, 1906 - Author James Still was born near LaFayette, Ala.

July 16, 1914 – The Monroe Journal reported that the steamboat connected with Henry Goldsmith was stranded in the “mid reaches” of the Alabama River with “no prospect of being floated until a much higher stage of water is available. The river is lower now than at any time within the last seven years.”

July 16, 1915 – A Farmers Institute meeting was scheduled to be held at the Conecuh County Courthouse in Evergreen, Ala.

July 16, 1918 – During World War I, Army Pvt. Bryant W. Price of McKenzie, Ala. and Army soldier Joshua Lowe of Repton, Ala. “died from wounds.”

July 16, 1918 - In Yekaterinburg, Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks, bringing an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty.

July 16, 1919 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Circuit Solicitor G.O. Dickey and family were soon to become citizens of Evergreen, Ala. They planned to move into the former residence of H.L. Tucker.

July 16, 1926 - The first underwater color photographs appeared in "National Geographic" magazine. The pictures had been taken near the Florida Keys.

July 16, 1928 – Former Confederate soldier Thomas Lindsey Downs passed away at the age of 98 in Monroe County, Ala. Born on May 17, 1830 in Georgia, he went on to enlist as a private in Co. F of the 36th Alabama Infantry. He was taken prisoner at Duck River, Tenn. and was forwarded to Camp Chase Prison in Ohio. He is buried in the Biggs Cemetery at Peterman, Ala.

July 16, 1935 – 1,000 or more farmers visited the Experiment Field three miles south of Monroeville, Ala.

July 16, 1939 – Evergreen’s baseball team was scheduled to meet the team from Atmore on this Sunday at 3:30 p.m. at Gantt Field in Evergreen, Ala.

July 16, 1940 - Adolf Hitler ordered the preparations to begin on the invasion of England, known as Operation Sea Lion.

July 16, 1941 – Joe DiMaggio hit safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.

July 16, 1945 - At 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project came to an explosive end as the first atom bomb was successfully detonated at the White Sands Proving Ground’s Trinity test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

July 16, 1945 – During World War II, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis left San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.

July 16, 1948 – Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo “The Lip” Durocher announced that he would be joining the New York Giants, the Dodgers’ archrival. The move was the swiftest and most stunning managerial change in baseball history.

July 16, 1950 – Army PFC James C. Stanford of Wilcox County, Ala. was killed in action in Korea.

July 16, 1950 – The Paul Aces baseball team picked up their eighth win in a row by beating the Flat Rock Rockets, 8-3, behind the pitching of Bertie Hassel and Harold Godwin.

July 16, 1951 – “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger was published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.

July 16, 1964 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Howard Cook killed a “monster rattlesnake” during the past week near Jay Villa, Ala. The snake was 5-foot-4 inches long, five inches wide across the back and three inches across at the jaws.

July 16, 1964 - Little League Baseball Incorporated was granted a Federal Charter unanimously by the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

July 16, 1970 - The Pittsburgh Pirates played their first game at Three Rivers Stadium.

July 16, 1973 – During the “Watergate Scandal,” former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informed the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.

July 16, 1979 – Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigned and was replaced by Saddam Hussein.

July 16, 1984 - U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton of Mobile, Ala. was scheduled to speak at the Conecuh County Courthouse in Evergreen, Ala. at 4:15 p.m.

July 16, 1985 - The All-Star Game, televised on NBC-TV, was the first program broadcast in stereo by a TV network.

July 16, 1994 – Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. Impacts continued until July 22.

July 16, 1998 - Alabama author John Henrik Clarke died in New York, N.Y.

July 16, 2005 - J.K. Rowling's book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was released. It was the sixth in the Harry Potter series. The book sold 6.9 million copies on its first day of release.