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| Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw |
July 18, 1743 - "The New York Weekly Journal"
published the first half-page newspaper ad.
July 18, 1779 - American Brigadier General Anthony Wayne
destroyed British fortifications at Stony Point, N.Y. In the action two days
before, he earned the moniker "Mad" Anthony Wayne for his successful
mission to take the garrison.
July 18, 1792 - Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones died
in his Paris apartment, where he was still awaiting a commission as the United
States consul to Algiers. One of the greatest naval commanders in history,
Jones is remembered as a Father of the American Navy, along with fellow
Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry. John Paul Jones is buried in a
crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland, where a Marine
honor guard stands at attention in his honor whenever the crypt is open to the
public
July 18, 1811 – William Makepeace Thackeray was born in
Calcutta, India. He is best remembered for his book, “Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero.”
July 18, 1826 - Colonel Isaac Shelby died from a stroke at
his estate in Lincoln County, Kentucky at the age of 75. He was a soldier in
Lord Dunmore's War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Later, he
served as the first and fifth Governor of Kentucky and served in the state
legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina.
July 18, 1862 – The first ascent of Dent Blanche, one of the
highest summits in the Alps, took place.
July 18, 1863 – During the Civil War, in what is known as
the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and 272 of
his troops were killed in an unsuccessful assault on Fort Wagner on Morris
Island near Charleston, South Carolina. After the battle Union General Quincy
Gillmore settled in for a long siege. The battle involved one of the first
formal (and perhaps the most famous) African American military units, the 54th
Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments.
July 18, 1863 - The Union advance was halted at Blackburn's
Ford on Bull Run.
July 18, 1864 – During the Civil War, a skirmish occurred
near Auburn, Ala.
July 18, 1864 – Confederate General John Bell Hood replaced
Joseph Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee because Johnston had
failed to keep General William T. Sherman away from Atlanta.
July 18, 1902 – The Conecuh Guards were scheduled to hold
their annual encampment at Sans Souci beach, near Mobile. The encampment was
scheduled to last one week, beginning on July 18. Prior to this, members of the
Conecuh Guards were expected to attend drill at their armoy on each Monday and
Friday leading up to July 18.
July 18, 1918 - Three days after a German offensive near the
Marne River in the Champagne region of France met with failure, Allied forces
launched a major counterattack, ending the Second Battle of the Marne and
decisively turning the tide of the war toward an Allied victory.
July 18, 1923 – Lillie Irene Gibbons passed away and was
buried in the Old Evergreen Cemetery in Evergreen, Ala. Years later, starting
in 2008, a local mystery involving multiple tombstones for her in Conecuh and
Butler counties would baffle police and historians alike.
July 18, 1924 - Alabama author Felicity Allen was born in
Louisville, Ky.
July 18, 1925 – Nazi leader Adolf Hitler published the first
volume of his personal manifesto “Mein Kampf,” seven months after he was
released from Landsberg jail. The autobiographical work soon became the bible
of Germany’s Nazi Party.
July 18, 1927 - Ty Cobb set a major league baseball record
by getting his 4,000th career hit. He hit 4,191 before he retired in 1928.
July 18, 1934 – Around 1 p.m., Conecuh County soldier Jesse
Dickerson was killed instantly by a bolt of lightning at Camp Jackson, S.C.,
whiled attending camp there with the local National Guard unit. Dickerson was
the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Dickerson, who lived several miles north
of Evergreen in the Holly Grove community.
July 18, 1934 – Shell Petroleum Co. district agent William
Gowan, 20, of Brewton was killed almost instantly in Castleberry when he fell
from a height of 20 feet at the Blue Bell camp. Gowan, the son of Dr. Gowan of
Brewton, had climbed a ladder to stretch a wire from one pole to another across
the highway to hang advertising signs, when he lost his balance and grabbed a
live power line before falling to the pavement, landing on his chin. He never
regain conciousness, died about 40 minutes later on the way to the Brewton
hospital and physicians didn’t know if the shock or fall killed him because none
of his bones were broken.
July 18, 1937 - Pioneer of "gonzo" journalism,
Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Ky.
July 18, 1940 – National Baseball Hall of Fame catcher,
first baseman, third baseman and manager Joe Torre was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
During his career, he played for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis
Cardinals and the New York Mets and went on to manage the Mets, the Braves, the
Cardinals, the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was inducted
into the Hall of Fame in 2014.
July 18, 1949 - Evergreen’s Junior American Legion Baseball
Team was eliminated from the district playoffs by Andalusia in a game on this
Monday afternoon in Andalusia, Ala. Evergreen, which was managed by Jack
Finklea, finished third in the regular season standings in the district with a
6-4 record behind first-place Andalusia and second-place Brewton. Evergreen
pitcher Bobby (Pistol Pete) Wells finished the season with a 6-2 pitching
record.
July 18, 1951 – Empire, Ala. native Daniel Robert “Dan”
Bankhead, the first black pitcher in major league baseball, played in his final
major league baseball game.
July 18, 1964 – The Evergreen Jaycees’ Second Annual
Evergreen Horse Show was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. on this Saturday at
Brooks Stadium in Evergreen, Ala. George Wallace Jr., the son of Alabama’s
governor, was scheduled to be the featured speaker.
July 18, 1964 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds hit the
only grand slam home run of his career.
July 18, 1968 – Intel (short for Integrated Electronics) was
founded, chiefly by Gordon E. Moore and Robert Noyce.
July 18, 1969 – Army Sgt. Rodney John Evans of Florala, Ala.
was killed in action in Vietnam.
July 18, 1970 - Ron Hunt of the San Francisco Giants was hit
by a pitch for the 119th time in his career.
July 18, 1972 – Reports of the “Missouri Monster”
proliferated in the Louisiana, Mo. area. One man claimed that he saw the
monster cross a highway carrying a sheep or dog in its mouth while numerous
other people claimed to have seen giants with red eyes staring at them from out
of the darkness. Another man swore that the monster picked up the back end of
his small foreign car.
July 18, 1995 – City of Evergreen workers were up all night
after severe weather knocked the power out to a large portion of Evergreen,
Ala. when the lines from the substation located in the Industrial Park were
torn down when a large tree fell across the lines. It left much of the
northwest part of the city without lights for almost 11 hours.
July 18, 1995 - The oldest known musical instrument in the
world was found in the Indrijca River Valley in Slovenia. The 45,000 year-old
relic was a bear bone with four artificial holes along its length.
July 18, 1995 - “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and
Inheritance,” a memoir by a little-known law professor named Barack Obama, is
published. Obama wrote the book before entering politics; 13 years after it was
published, he was elected America’s 44th president.
July 18, 1999 - New York Yankee David Cone pitched the 16th
perfect game in major league history and 14th in the modern era with a no-hit,
no-walk victory over the Montreal Expos.
July 18, 2008 – “The Dark Knight,” the fifth film in the
big-screen “Batman” series, opened in theaters around the United States, six
months after the death of one of its stars, Heath Ledger, who played the Joker.
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