Today in History for July 22, 2015

July 22, 1298 – During the Wars of Scottish Independence, at the Battle of Falkirk, King Edward I of England and his longbowmen defeated William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons outside the town of Falkirk.

July 22, 1376 - The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin leading rats out of town is said to have occurred on this date.

July 22, 1587 – A second group of English settlers arrived on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.

July 22, 1598 – Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice” was entered on the Stationers’ Register.

July 22, 1779 - Mohawk Indian Chief and Freemason Joseph Brant leads a mixed force of Loyalists and Indians in surrounding a force of 120 colonial militiamen from New York and New Jersey at Minisink, New York. The militia was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Tusten, Major Samuel Meeker and Colonel John Hathorn. Tusten and approximately 45 to 50 others were killed in the initial battle and their ensuing defense from a hillside above the river.

July 22, 1779 - Sir James Wright resumed his role as royal governor of Georgia. He left on July 11, 1782, as the British evacuated Georgia.

July 22, 1788 – Early Conecuh County pioneer Chesley Crosby was born in Chester District, S.C. He came to Conecuh County in 1818 and settled at Hampden Ridge. He was “Coroner and Ranger” of Conecuh County in 1818 and “Justice of the Quorum” of Conecuh County in 1819. A longtime supporter of the Belleville Baptist Church, he also helped found one of the county’s first schools, Evergreen Academy, in 1840. One of the school’s original trustees, he passed away at his home between Belleville and Sparta on May 22, 1864.

July 22, 1793 – Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific Ocean becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of Canada.

July 22, 1798 - The USS Constitution was underway and out to sea for the first time since being launched on October 21, 1797.

July 22, 1823 – William Bartram, one of America’s first professional botanists, passed away at the age of 84 while working in his garden in Kingsessing, Pa. Between 1773 and 1777, he went on a botanical and anthropological expedition through the Southeast, including Alabama, passing through Baldwin, Butler, Conecuh, Escambia and Monroe counties. He published the famous book, Bartram’s “Travels” in 1791.

July 22, 1839 – Isaac Betts became postmaster at Burnt Corn, Ala.

July 22, 1844 - The Rev. William Archibald Spooner was born at 17 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Place, London, SW1. The lecturer became known for what are now called 'spoonerisms,' slips of the tongue where the consonants of words are reversed. One of his flubs was issued as he officiated at a wedding: "Son, it is now kisstomary to cuss the bride."

July 22, 1849 – Poet Emma Lazarus was born in New York City.

July 22, 1862 - The Confederate ironclad Arkansas fought with and ran off two Union ships. However, the Arkansas suffered damage to her engines.

July 22, 1862 - President Abraham Lincoln informed his chief advisors and cabinet that he would issue a proclamation to free slaves, but added that he would wait until the Union Army has achieved a substantial military victory to make the announcement.

July 22, 1864 – During the American Civil War, at the Battle of Atlanta, Confederate General John Bell Hood led an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill outside Atlanta.

July 22, 1864 – George Morgan Rikard of Buena Vista, a private in the Alabama CSA Cavalry, was wounded in the Battle of Atlanta and died six hours later. According to the letter written to his wife, Caroline, by L.L. McCreary, Rikard was buried in the flower garden of Col. Robert Alston’s home nearby.

July 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought at Camp Gonzales, Florida

July 22, 1882 – Painter Edward Hopper was born in Nyack, N.Y.

July 22, 1888 - Biochemist Selman Abraham Waksman, discoverer of streptomycin, the first effective treatment of tuberculosis, was born in the Ukraine.

July 22, 1893 – National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Jesse Haines was born in Clayton, Ohio. During his career, he played for the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970.

July 22, 1909 – The Conecuh Record reported that the Nashville American baseball team beat Evergreen in three games that week in Evergreen, Ala.

July 22, 1909 - At Huntington Avenue Grounds, Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers stole three bases in one inning.

July 22, 1914 – Alabama State Highway Engineer William Simpson Keller (Helen Keller’s half-brother) passed down the Old Stage Road in Conecuh and Monroe counties as part of a scouting party that included about 25 automobiles, surveying proposed trunk highway from Mobile to Montgomery.

July 22, 1915 – The Monroe Journal reported that the bridge across Lovett’s Creek on the Mount Pleasant Road collapsed “one day last week” when a heavily loaded wagon tried to cross it.

July 22, 1915 – The Monroe County Fair Association’s executive committee met in Monroeville on this Thursday and agreed to hold the Monroe County Fair on Oct. 19-21 of that year.

July 22, 1918 – During World War I, Army PFC John Henry Privett of Lower Peachtree was killed in action.

July 22, 1926 - Babe Ruth caught a baseball at Mitchell Field in New York. The ball had been dropped from an airplane flying at 250 feet.

July 22, 1928 – Confederate veteran R.T.C. Robinson of Evergreen passed away.

July 22, 1932 – Herbert farmer G.R. Stinson brought the first open bolls of cotton of the 1932 crop into The Courant office.

July 22, 1932 – Welcome Church, located about one mile from Travis Bridge on U.S. Highway 31, was destroyed by a tornado around 4 p.m.

July 22, 1934 – Outside Chicago's Biograph Theater, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger was mortally wounded by FBI agents.

July 22, 1934 – Evergreen’s baseball team was scheduled to play Chapman on this Sunday in Evergreen, Ala.

July 22, 1940 – William George Riley, the last surviving Confederate veteran in Conecuh County (except for one who’d recently moved there from another part of the state), passed away at his home in Evergreen on this Monday at 5 p.m., at the age of 97 years, 10 months and 20 days. Born in the Old Pineville community near present-day Beatrice on Sept. 2, 1842, he enlisted in the Confederate military at the age of 19, served four years under General Forrest and was severely wounded in the Battle of Manassas. He and his family moved from Old Pineville to Evergreen in 1887.

July 22, 1955 – The Evergreen Giants beat the Yankees, 16-7. Standout players for the Giants included winning pitcher Leon Stinson, Eddie Lambert and Terry Trawick. Standout players for the Yankees included losing pitcher H.W. Ward, Ronnie Byrd, Reuben Hyde and Bob Miller.

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July 22, 1955 – James Tucker Sr., a farmer from Castleberry, Ala., brought in the first bag of cotton from the 1955 crop to the Conecuh County Agent’s Office.

July 22, 1962 - Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

July 22, 1975 - Confederate General Robert E. Lee had his U.S. citizenship restored by the U.S. Congress.

July 22, 1987 - The U.S. began its policy of escorting re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers up and down the Persian Gulf to protect them from possible attack by Iran.

July 22, 1991 – The Ackerville Baptist Church of Christ in Ackerville and Prairie Mission (also known as the Prairie Mission School and Prairie Institute) near Catherine, both in Wilcox County, Ala., were added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.

July 22, 1991 – The Hank Williams Sr. Boyhood Home in Georgiana, Ala. was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.

July 22, 1991 - Police arrested Jeffrey Dahmer after finding the remains of 11 victims in his apartment in Milwaukee. Dahmer confessed to 17 murders and was sentenced to life in prison.

July 22, 1999 - Alabama author and illustrator Dorothea Warren Fox died in New Fairfield, Conn.

July 22, 2003 – Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attacked a compound in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year-old son, and a bodyguard. It is widely believed that the two men were even more cruel and ruthless than their notorious father, and their death was celebrated among many Iraqis. They were buried in a cemetery near the city of Tikrit, their father’s birthplace.

July 22, 2003 - U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch, a prisoner-of-war who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital, received a hero’s welcome when she returned to her hometown of Palestine, West Virginia. The story of the 19-year-old supply clerk, who was captured by Iraqi forces in March 2003, gripped America; however, it was later revealed that some details of Lynch’s dramatic capture and rescue might have been exaggerated.

July 22, 2004 - The September 11 Commission's final report was released. The 575-page report concluded that hijackers exploited "deep institutional failings within our government." The report was released to White House officials the day before.