Today in History for March 12, 2016

Albert G. Mackey

March 12, 1692 – In connection with the Salem witchcraft trials, Ann Putnam Jr. accused Martha Corey of witchcraft.

March 12, 1776 - British Major General Sir Henry Clinton arrived in North Carolina. The North Carolina Loyalists had been routed at Moore's Creek Bridge on February 27.

March 12, 1776 - In Baltimore, Md., a public notice appeared in local papers to recognize the efforts and sacrifice of women to the cause of the revolution. The notice urged others to recognize women’s contributions and announced, “The necessity of taking all imaginable care of those who may happen to be wounded in the country’s cause, urges us to address our humane ladies, to lend us their kind assistance in furnishing us with linen rags and old sheeting, for bandages.”

March 12, 1789 - The U.S. Post Office was established.

March 12, 1807 – Prominent freemason Albert G. Mackey was born in Charleston, S.C. A medical doctor and author, he is best known for his writing many books and articles about freemasonry, particularly the Masonic Landmarks.

March 12, 1820 – Scottish explorer and politician Alexander Mackenzie died near Dunkeld, Scotland, United Kingdom.

March 12, 1834 – Butler County’s Col. Hilary Abner Herbert was born in Laurens Court House, S.C. Although swept up in the “Doby Rebellion” at the University of Alabama, he later served on the school’s Board of Trustees. He went on to become an attorney and served as an officer in the Greenville Guards during the Civil War. He was wounded and captured at the Battle of Seven Pines, wounded three times at Sharpsburg and received a disabling wound in the left arm at the Battle of the Wilderness. He later served as U.S. Representative from Alabama’s Second District and as Secretary of the Navy under Grover Cleveland.

March 12, 1861 – During the Civil War, Federal forces abandoned Ft McIntosh, Texas.

March 12, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought in the vicinity of Aubrey, Kansas; and at Lexington and in the vicinity of Lebanon, Mo.

March 12, 1863 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis delivered his State of the Confederacy address.

March 12, 1863 – During the Civil War, an eight-day Federal operation between Columbia, Ky. and Perryville, Tenn. began. A skirmish was fought at Louisa, Ky., and five days of Federal operations in Boone, Wyoming and Logan counties, West Virginia began.

March 12, 1864 – During the Civil War, the Red River Campaign, one of the biggest fiascos of the Civil War, began as a U.S. Navy fleet of 13 Ironclads and seven gunboats and other support ships entered the Red River. The Union goal was to capture everything along the Red River in Louisiana and continue into Texas. None of the objectives were achieved.

March 12, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought near Union City, Tenn. and operations were conducted at Nola Chucky Bend, which is in the vicinity of Morristown, Tenn.

March 12, 1865 – During the Civil War, a Federal operation originating from Lewisburg, Ark. into Yell and Searcy counties, Ark. began. Skirmishes were also fought at Morganza Bend, La.; at Lone Jack, Mo. and in the vicinity of Vienna, Va. Federal operations were also conducted in the vicinity of Grand Gulf, Miss. and in Loudoun County, Va.

March 12, 1865 – Less than a month from being released as a Union prisoner, Noah Dallas Peacock (Lewis Lavon Peacock’s older brother) was admitted to General Hospital No. 9 in Richmond, Va.

March 12, 1877 - Alabama author Octavia Walton Le Vert died on her family's plantation near Augusta, Ga.

March 12, 1888 – The Great Blizzard of 1888, a storm that dumped up to 50 inches of snow along the East Coast from Montreal to Washington, D.C., occurred. Four hundred people died in the storm, more than 200 of them from New York City, which was hit particularly hard.

March 12, 1894 – Coca-Cola was bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi by local soda fountain operator Joseph Biedenharn. Invented by an Atlanta pharmacist, the original formula included lime, cinnamon and coca leaves.

March 12, 1903 - The New York Highlanders were given the go-ahead by team owners to join baseball’s American League. The Highlanders had recently moved from Baltimore, where they were called the Orioles and had a winning tradition dating back to the 1890s. Called the “Yankees” by fans, the team officially changed its name to the New York Yankees in 1913, and went on to become the most dominant franchise in American sports.

March 12, 1913 - The American League approved the name change of the New York Highlanders to the Yankees.

March 12, 1916 – A Hamil Memorial Day was observed by both the Monroeville and Burnt Corn Methodist Sunday schools on this Sunday and offerings amounting to about $5 were made by each school for the memorial building at Auburn. At the Burnt Corn school, a special program appropriate to the occasion was rendered under the direction of Mrs. J.K. Kyser.

March 12, 1922 – Novelist and poet Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Mass. His most famous novel, “On the Road,” was published in 1957. On May 22, 2001, the original draft was sold at an auction for $2.2 million, a record for a literary manuscript at auction.

March 12, 1923 - Dr. Lee DeForest demonstrated phonofilm. It was his technique for putting sound on motion picture film.

March 12, 1928 - The St. Francis Dam Disaster took place and was the second-worst disaster in California history.

March 12, 1928 - A movie version of Alabama author Octavus Roy Cohen's book “His In-Laws” was released.

March 12, 1928 – Playwright Edward Albee was born Edward Harvey in Washington, D.C. He was adopted two weeks later and taken to Larchmont, New York in Westchester County, where he grew up. He is most famous for his 1962 play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

March 12, 1933 - President Paul von Hindenburg dropped the flag of the German Republic and ordered that the swastika and empire banner be flown side by side.

March 12, 1934 – Children’s author Virginia Hamilton was born in Ohio.

March 12, 1946 – The World War II prisoner of war camp closed in Jackson, Ala. Many of the prisoners were members of Germany’s Afrkia Korps. The camp opened on April 6, 1945.

March 12, 1949 – Reuben Lee Ball allegedly used a shotgun to kill L&N railroad laborer R.C. Stallworth around 4:30 p.m. in the “quarters’ behind the Evergreen, Ala. Curb Market. Stallworth died about the time he arrived at the Carter Hospital in Repton for treatment. Ball was later arrested in Century, Fla. and was transported to Pensacola. On March 14, he was transported to the Conecuh County Jail in Evergreen, where he was charged with Stallworth’s muder. Sara Thomas was also jailed on a charge of accessory after fact, after she allegedly assisted Ball in getting out of Evergreen.

March 12, 1954 - The movie “Beat the Devil,” screenplay by Alabama author Truman Capote, was released.

March 12, 1956 – Major League Baseball outfielder Dale Murphy was born in Portland, Oregon. He went on to play for the Atlanta Braves, the Philadelphia Philles and the Colorado Rockies.

March 12, 1957 – In an incident attributed to the “Dragon’s Triangle,” a KB-50 tanker plane vanished with a crew of eight on a routine flight from Japan to Wake Island.

March 12, 1959 - The U.S. House joined the U.S. Senate in approving the statehood of Hawaii.

March 12, 1961 - A television version of Alabama author Cora Cheney's book “The Peg-Leg Pirate of Sulu” was broadcast as part of the “Shirley Temple's Storybook” series.

March 12, 1961 – Toni Kinshofer, Anderl Mannhardt, Walter Almberger and Toni Hiebeler completed the first winter ascent of the Eiger’s north face.

March 12, 1962 – Major League Baseball right fielder Darryl Strawberry was born in Los Angeles, Calif. He would go on to play for the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees.

March 12, 1968 - Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnesota), an outspoken critic of the Johnson administration’s policies in Vietnam, polled 42 percent of the vote in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary. President Lyndon B. Johnson got 48 percent. A Harris poll later showed that anti-Johnson, rather than antiwar, sentiment provided the basis for McCarthy’s surprisingly strong performance.

March 12, 1972 - The last remnants of the First Australian Task Force withdrew from Vietnam.

March 12, 1973 – National Baseball Hall of Fame second baseman and manager Frankie Frisch died at the age of 74 in Wilmington, Deleware. During his career, he played for the New York Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals and he managed the Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1947.

March 12, 1974 - "Wonder Woman" debuted on ABC-TV. The show later went to CBS-TV.

March 12, 1977 - Weather observer Earl Windham reported 1.98 inches of rain in Evergreen, Ala.

March 12, 1983 – Pensacola, Fla. firefighter A.K. “App” Appleberg was killed in the line of duty.

March 12, 1987 - "Les Miserables" opened on Broadway.

March 12, 1991 - The R.E.M. album "Out of Time" was released.

March 12, 1994 - A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell of the Loch Ness monster was confirmed to be a hoax. The photo was taken of a toy submarine with a head and neck attached.

March 12, 1998 - Cathay Pacific Airways announced that it had banned Liam Gallagher of Oasis after an incident on a flight from Hong Kong to Australia.

March 12, 2002 - Author Oxford Stroud died in Auburn, Ala.

March 12, 2002 - U.S. homeland security chief Tom Ridge unveiled a color-coded threat advisory scale system for terror warnings.

March 12, 2003 - The YES Network and Cablevision reached an interim deal to air New York Yankee games. Three million viewers had not had access to the games for 2002.

March 12, 2009 – On this night, marks claimed to be smiliar to the “Devil’s Footprints” left in 1855, were found in Devon, England.