Today in History for Jan. 22, 2016

Thornton Wilder

Jan. 22, 1552 – English poet, soldier and explorer Walter Raleigh was born at Hayes Barton, East Budleigh, Devon, England. (Some sources say he was born in 1554.)

Jan. 22, 1561 – Philosopher, essayist and statesman Francis Bacon was born in London.

Jan. 22, 1733 – English admiral and explorer Philip Carteret was born in Trinity Manor, Jersey.

Jan. 22, 1779 – Famed Tory outlaw Claudius Smith, known as the "Cowboy of the Ramapos," was hanged in Goshen, N.Y. Smith earned his nickname for his use of guerrilla tactics against Patriot civilians. Legend has it that Claudius Smith’s skull was filled with mortar and included in the edifice of the Goshen Court House.

Jan. 22, 1788 – Poet Lord Byron was born George Gordon Noel Byron in London.

Jan. 22, 1813 – Tecumseh was not far away from the scene of conflict when Frenchtown was taken.

Jan. 22, 1814 – The Battle of Emuckfa Creek occurred as 400 to 500 Red Stick Indians attacked the camp of General Andrew Jackson, Lower Creek and Cherokee near Imuckfa Creek in Clay County, 20 to 50 miles northeast of Horseshoe Bend. In this indecisive battle, 54 Red Sticks were killed and 24 of Jackson’s forces were killed and 71 wounded.

Jan. 22, 1862 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought at Knobnoster, Mo. The Federal occupation of Lebanon, Mo. began. A four-day Federal expedition to Edisto Island, S.C. began.

Jan. 22, 1862 - Pioneering physician Luther Leonidas Hill Jr. was born in Montgomery, Ala. Hill is regarded as the first American physician to successfully repair a wounded heart in a surgery that the patient survived. In 1902 he saved the life of a 13-year-old stabbing victim.

Jan. 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, the CSS Florida captured and destroyed Federal shipping in the form of Corris and the Winward off the coast of Cuba. A skirmish was fought in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.

Jan. 22, 1863 - Union General Ambrose Burnside issued his troops liquor in an effort to lift the spirits of the soldiers. However, drunken troops fought each other making the "Mud March" a complete fiasco.

Jan. 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought in the vicinity of the communities of Clear Creek and Tomahawk, Ark.; at Subligna, Ga.; and at Ellis’ Ford and Germantown, Va. A six-day Federal operation between Union City and Trenton, Tenn. began.

Jan. 22, 1865 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought on the Benton Road, in the vicinity of Little Rock, Ark. The first day of a Federal operation that lasted until Feb. 4 began between Little Rock and Mount Elba, Ark.

Jan. 22, 1870 – The Monroe Journal reported that a “man was arrested and sentenced to ‘forty days’ at Natchez, Christmas week, for levying a dollar a wagon of toll from some movers from Alabama at the bridge over St. Catherine’s creek, which has been free since the memory of man.”

Jan. 22, 1881 - The ancient Egyptian obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle was erected in NYC's Central Park.

Jan. 22, 1888 – Rube Burrow and his brother, Jim Burrow, arrived by train in Montgomery, Ala. Jim Burrow was arrested and Rube Burrow escaped by shooting a 29-year-old Montgomery Advertiser compositor, Cornelius Hartford “Neil” Bray, in the left lung.

Jan. 22, 1901 - Queen Victoria of England passed away at the age of 81 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight after reigning for nearly 64 years. Edward VII, her son, succeeded her.

Jan. 22, 1904 - Alabama author John Beecher was born in New York, N.Y.

Jan. 22, 1911 – Jas. Andrews of Skinnerton, Ala. was killed by a train, his body being “literally ground to pieces.” His remains were buried in Skinnerton.

Jan. 22, 1911 - Alabama author John Hazard Wildman was born in Mobile, Ala.

Jan. 22, 1916 – Edward S. Robbins was killed between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on this Saturday at the L.D. King Lumber Co. mill in Conecuh County, Ala. According to The Conecuh Record, Robbins stumbled, was caught by the saw, had both of his legs severed above the knee and bled to death before medical aid could reach him. Born in 1860, Robbins was buried in the Old Evergreen Cemetery.

Jan. 22, 1916 - Capt. W.A. Andrews of Perdue Hill visited Monroeville, Ala. on this Saturday and “favored The Journal with a pleasant call. Capt. Andrews was a gallant Confederate soldier and regarded as one of the best drill officers in the service. He is pleasantly remembered by many who were members of the Monroe County Corps, a local military company which flourished some twenty-odd years ago and which was organized and commanded by him.”

Jan. 22, 1922 - Howard Moss, longtime poetry editor for The New Yorker and National Book Award-winning poet, was born in Rockaway Beach, in the Borough of Queens.

Jan. 22, 1923 – Milt Tolbert’s Big Tent Theatre, which featured a “repertoire of high class comedies and dramas” and included a band and orchestra, began a series of performances in Evergreen, Ala. Their performances, which began at 8 p.m. included a four-act comedy drama called “The Woman He Wanted.” Shows were held under their heated, “big, waterproof” tent.

Jan. 22, 1926 – Conecuh County Sheriff A.M. Barfield carried out Conecuh County’s last legal execution when he hung Murray Rankins, who’d been convicted of assaulting a white woman, from the gallows at the Conecuh County Jail in Evergreen, Ala.

Jan. 22, 1927 – H.P. Lovecraft completed “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” which was originally published in 1943’s “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.”

Jan. 22, 1927 - Confederate General John A. “Tiger John” McCausland passed away at the age of 90 in Mason, West Virginia. He lived for over 50 years after the war and remained an unreconstructed Rebel at the time of his death. McCausland died 13 months before Felix Robertson, the last surviving Confederate general.

Jan. 22, 1929 – Evergreen High School’s boys basketball team, led by Coach Abe Robinson, won their 13th straight game by beating Conecuh County High School, 59-10.

Jan. 22, 1931 – In Lovecraftian fiction, Miskatonic University’s Pabodie Antarctic Expedition discovered the huge Mountains of Madness.

Jan. 22, 1938 - "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder was performed publicly for the first time, at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J.

Jan. 22, 1942 - The Gleaves-class destroyer, USS Hobson, was commissioned in Richmond Pearson Hobson’s honor posthumously.

Jan. 22, 1946 – The Central Intelligence Group, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, was created.

Jan. 22, 1949 – The Air Force suspended search operations for the Star Ariel, which disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle on Jan. 17, 1949.

Jan. 22, 1951 - Fidel Castro was ejected from a Winter League baseball game after hitting a batter. He later gave up baseball for politics.

Jan. 22, 1952 - Teddy Gentry, bassist for the band Alabama, was born near Fort Payne.

Jan. 22, 1953 - The Arthur Miller drama "The Crucible" opened on Broadway.

  

Jan. 22, 1959 – The Evergreen Courant reported that “one of Conecuh County’s longest periods of service” had ended that week when Ann B. Salter left the office of Conecuh County (Ala.) Circuit Clerk, where she’d worked for nearly 15 years. Circuit Judge F.W. Hare appointed Salter to the office in June 1944 to fill the unexpired term of Margaret Wilson, who had resigned. Her husband Leon A. Salter was elected to a six-year term as Circuit Clerk in 1946, and she served as deputy clerk until her husband was called to active duty during the Korean War. When his term expired, he was still in Korea, so Ann Salter ran for the office and won without opposition. Her term in office ended at midnight on Jan. 19, 1959.

Jan. 22, 1964 - The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff informed Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that they “are wholly in favor of executing the covert actions against North Vietnam.” President Johnson had recently approved Oplan 34A, provocative operations to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces (supported by the United States) to gather intelligence and conduct sabotage to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime. Actual operations would begin in February and involve raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under American orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. 

Jan. 22, 1966 – Mabel Amos of Brooklyn, Ala. qualified to run for Alabama Secretary of State becoming the first Conecuh County woman in many years to seek an office subject to statewide vote.

Jan. 22, 1968 – Operation Igloo White, a US electronic surveillance system to stop communist infiltration into South Vietnam began installation.

Jan. 22, 1969 - Operating in the two northernmost military regions, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) launched two major operations. In the first operation, conducted by the 1st Cavalry Division in Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces, south of the Demilitarized Zone, “First Team” units launched Operation Jeb Stuart. This operation was a large-scale reinforcement of the Marines in the area and focused on clearing enemy Base Areas 101 and 114. Jeb Stuart was terminated on March 31 with enemy casualties listed at 3,268; U.S. casualties were 291 killed in action and 1,735 wounded. On the same day that Jeb Stuart was launched, other 1st Cavalry units launched Operation Pershing II in the coastal lowlands in Binh Dinh Province. This operation, designed to clear enemy forces from the area, lasted until February 29.

Jan. 22, 1969 – In Lovecraftian fiction, during the Wilmarth Foundation’s expedition to track down the fabled Wendigo, Texas telepath Hank Silberhutte and the crew of his plane vanished. Silberhutte’s true fate remains a mystery. He first appeared in 1978’s “Spawn of the Winds” by Brian Lumley.

Jan. 22, 1973 - Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson died from a heart attack at his ranch in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64.

Jan. 22, 1976 – Major League Baseball pitcher Jimmy Anderson was born in Portsmouth, Va. He went on to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox.

Jan. 22, 1982 - Reggie Jackson, a free agent at the time, ended five seasons as a New York Yankee when he signed a four-year contract with the California Angels.

Jan. 22, 1984 - Apple introduced the Macintosh during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII.

Jan. 22, 1984 - Barry Manilow sang the U.S. national anthem at Super Bowl XVIII.

Jan. 22, 1985 - Alabama author Borden Deal died in Sarasota, Fla.

Jan. 22, 1987 – The Ritz Theater in Brewton, Ala. closed. Its last feature movie was “Crocodile Dundee.”

Jan. 22, 1991 – During the Persian Gulf War, three Iraqi Scuds and one Patriot missile hit Ramat Gan in Israel, injuring 96 people. Three elderly people died of heart attacks.

Jan. 22, 1998 - Theodore Kaczynski pled guilty to federal charges for his role as the Unabomber. He agreed to life in prison without parole.

Jan. 22, 1988 - Alabama author Carlyle Tillery died in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Jan. 22, 2001 – Marengo County, Ala. native Tommie Lee Agee suffered a heart attack while leaving a Midtown Manhattan office building and passed away later that day at the age of 58 at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. He was a Major League Baseball center fielder most noted for making two of the greatest catches in World Series history, both of which occurred in game three of the 1969 World Series. He was buried in Pine Crest Cemetery in Mobile, Ala. He was posthumously inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 2002. During his career, he played for the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago White Sox, the New York Mets, the Houston Astros and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Jan. 22, 2002 - Pat Summerall announced that he would leave his NFL broadcasting partner, John Madden, after they called the Super Bowl for Fox Sports. The two had worked together for 21 years.

Jan. 22, 2007 – At least 88 people were killed when two car bombs explodd in the Bab Al-Sharqi market in central Baghdad, Iraq.

Jan. 22, 2007 – Vietnamese general Ngô Quang Trưởng died at the age of 77 in Falls Church, Va.

Jan. 22, 2009 – Mary Mims of Evergreen, Ala. was presented with the 2008 Billy G. McKenzie Evergreen Medical Center Employee of the Year Award during a ceremony at the hospital in Evergreen.

Jan. 22, 2009 – Sparta Academy’s varsity girls basketball team, ranked No. 2 in the state, beat Central Christian, 73-33, in Evergreen.

Jan. 22, 2014 – Alabama native Bo Jackson rejoined the Chicago White Sox as an ambassador to the team, joining the ranks of Frank Thomas, Minnie Minoso, Carlton Fisk, Ron Kittle, Carlos May, and Bill Melton.

Jan. 22, 2015 – Around 1:04 a.m. in Auburn in Lee County, Ala., a UFO witness walked outside to get a charger from his car when he looked up and saw a “pinkish, reddish light” move across the sky in a “smooth, fluid motion.” The light didn’t fly straight, but instead it moved in a very long S-shaped pattern. The light moved too fast for it to have been a plane, and the witness was only able to see it for around six seconds before it disappeared.