Today in History for March 22, 2016

James Harrison Wilson

March 22, 1457 – The “Gutenberg Bible” became the first printed book.

March 22, 1508 – Ferdinand II of Aragon commissioned Amerigo Vespucci as the chief navigator of the Spanish Empire.

March 22, 1622 – Algonquian Indians killed 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony's population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War. The incident is commonly referred to as the “Jamestown Massacre.”

March 22, 1713 – The Tuscarora War came to an end with the fall of Fort Neoheroka, which effectively opened up the interior of North Carolina to European colonization.

March 22, 1739 – Nader Shah occupied Delhi in India and sacked the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.

March 22, 1765 – The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act that introduced a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies. It was the first direct British tax on the American colonists and sought to raise funds for a standing British army in America. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, from newspapers and pamphlets to playing cards and dice. It was repealed on March 17, 1766.

March 22, 1790 - Thomas Jefferson became the first U.S. Secretary of State.

March 22, 1794 - The U.S. Congress banned U.S. vessels from supplying slaves to other countries.

March 22, 1814 – General Andrew Jackson joined Col. Williams of the 39th Regiment at the mouth of Cedar Creek in present-day Talladega County, Ala. and built a fort, which Jackson named after Williams.

March 22, 1815 – Ferdinand L. Claiborne died in Natchez, Miss. at the age of 45.

March 22, 1817 - Confederate General Braxton Bragg was born in Warrenton, North Carolina. Bragg commanded the Army of Tennessee for 17 months, leading them to several defeats and losing most of the state of Tennessee to the Yankees.

March 22, 1818 – English-Australian explorer John Ainsworth Horrocks was born at Penwortham Lodge, near Preston, Lancashire. He is best known for establishing the town of Penwortham in South Australia.

March 22, 1820 - U.S. Navy officer Stephen Decatur, hero of the Barbary Wars, was mortally wounded in a duel with disgraced Navy Commodore James Barron at Bladensburg, Maryland. Although once friends, Decatur sat on the court-martial that suspended Barron from the Navy for five years in 1808 and later opposed his reinstatement, leading to a fatal quarrel between the two men.

March 22, 1862 - Confederate Cavalry Commander Turner Ashby attacked Union troops that were moving out of Shenandoah Valley. The Confederates lost the Battle of Kernstown, Va. the next day.

Marc 22, 1862 – During the Civil War, an 11-day Federal operation began against Indians in the Humboldt Military Division of California. Skirmishes were fought at Independence and Post Oak, Mo. and at Kearnstown, Va. The British vessel, the Oreto, embarked from Liverpool, England for Nassau, in the Bahamas islands, where she was sold to the Confederacy and renamed the CSS Florida.

March 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought near the head of the White River in Arkansas; at Mount Sterling, Ky.; along the Big Black River in Mississppi; at Blue Springs, close to Independence, Mo.; near Murfreesborough Tenn.; and out from Occoquan, Va. at Selecman’s Ford.

March 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought with Indians along the Eel River in California; south of Mayfield, Ky. at Fancy Farms; at Langley’s Plantation in Issaquena County, Miss.; at Corpus Christi, Texas; and in the vicinity of Winchester, Va.

March 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, the notion of coming up behind Vicksburg, Miss. by working guns hips and troops through Mississippi Delta waterways was officially abandoned on this day. The twisting jungle-like waters simply would not accommodate the boats.

March 22, 1865 – During the Civil War, a 33-day Federal cavalry operation began under the command of Union Brigadier General James Harrison Wilson. This raid included the Battle of Selma, Ala.

March 22, 1865 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Stephenson’s Mill, near Salem, Mo.; at Black Creek, Hannah’s Creek, and Mill Creek, N.C.; in the vicinity of Celina, Tenn.; in the vicinity of Patterson Creek Station, West Virginia.

March 22, 1869 - The Dale County Courthouse in Newton, Ala. burned, and the county seat was moved to Ozark in 1870.

March 22, 1873 - Slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico.

March 22, 1895 - The first private screening of a motion picture took place in Paris at a conference of the Society for the Development of the National Industry. About 200 people attended, including Léon Gaumont, director of a prestigious photographic supply company who would go on to become a movie pioneer in his own right.

March 22, 1899 - Author Lella Warren was born in Clayton, Ala.

March 22, 1903 - Niagara Falls ran out of water due to a drought.

March 22, 1904 - The first color photograph was published in The London Daily Illustrated Mirror.

March 22, 1904 - A patent was issued for a "baseball catcher."

March 22, 1906 – The Monroe Journal reported that another rural free delivery mail route had been established in Monroe County, Ala., designated as R.F.D. No. 2. It ran from Snider on the Manistee & Repton Railroad and served an extensive territory around Jones Mill. Several post offices in the neighborhood were discontinued.

March 22, 1906 – The Monroe Journal, in news from the Activity community, it was reported that Dr. A.G. Stacey’s new drug store was nearly complete.

March 22, 1906 – The Monroe Journal, in news from the Pineville community, reported that Lee Andrews had nearly finished two terms at the Medical college in Mobile, Ala. His examinations there were scheduled to end around April 5.

March 22, 1908 – Western writer Louis L'Amour was born in Jamestown, North Dakota. His first novel, “Westward the Tide,” was published in 1951. Over the next three decades, L’Amour wrote more than 100 novels, selling 320 million books worldwide, and is considered the finest writer in the Western genre.

March 22, 1916 - The Monroe County Medical Society met on this Wednesday “with an unusually large attendance of physicians of the county. A number of able papers were read and discussions had on subjects of special interest to the profession.” Later that night, “an eloquent banquet was served at the Crook Hotel, covers being laid for some 15 or 18 including a few invited guests among whom ye editor had the honor to be numbered,” according to The Monroe Journal.

March 22, 1924 – USA Today founder Allen H. Neuharth was born in rural South Dakota.

March 22, 1925 – In H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional work, “The Call of Cthulhu,” the Emma encountered a heavily armed yacht, the Alert, crewed by "a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes" from Dunedin, New Zealand. Despite being attacked by the Alert without provocation, the crew of the Emma were able to kill the opposing crew, but lost their own ship in the battle. Commandeering the Alert, the surviving crew sailed on and made an unexpected discovery the following day.

March 22, 1930 – Composer and songwriter Stephen Sondheim was born in New York City.

March 22, 1931 – H.P. Lovecraft completed his novel, “At the Mountains of Madness,” which was originally published in the February, March and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories.

March 22, 1931 - William Shatner was born in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek (1966–69).

March 22, 1938 - Bobby Jones, 13-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. R.H. Jones, sustained fractures of both arms just above the wrists at noon on this Tuesday when the bicycle which he was riding collided sidewise with a truck driven by Richard Brassell. The accident occurred on Perryman Street where Shipp Street intersects in Evergreen, Ala. Jones and a number of other boys were riding toward the business section of Perryman while the truck was going north on Shipp Street. Neither saw the other in time to avoid the collision. Jones, when he saw that a collision was inevitable, threw out his hands to catch the weight of the impact which caused fractures of both arms. Both bones of the right arm were broken while only one was broken in the left. The ligaments of the left were badly injured it is said. He also received a number of other minor bruises and sprains.

March 22, 1939 - Author G. C. Skipper was born in Ozark, Ala.

March 22, 1939 - John J. Putnam, 34, sports editor of The Birmingham Post for 12 years, died at a hospital following an operation. He had been ill for several weeks. Before coming to Birmingham, Ala., Putnam was a reporter with The Muskogee (Okla.) Phoenix and on the sports staff of The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune.

March 22, 1941 – Evergreen, Ala. native Robert James McCreary died at his home on Lexington Road in Montgomery. He was engaged in the wholesale lumber business for many years, moved to Montgomery in 1972 and operated the R.J. McCreary Lumber Co.

March 22, 1941 – Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins was born in New York City.

March 22, 1947 – Best-selling author James Patterson was born in Newburgh, N.Y.

March 22, 1948 - "The Voice of Firestone" became the first commercial radio program to be carried simultaneously on both AM and FM radio stations.

March 22, 1952 – Sportscaster Bob Costas was born in New York City.

March 22, 1954 – The Western Auto Store on West Front Street in Evergreen, Ala. caught fire and “threatened the West Front Street business district momentarily and did considerable damage to the Western Auto Building.” The store was owned by M.B. English, and the building was owned by the W.K. Horton Sr. Estate.

March 22, 1956 – Around midnight, James Richard Merritt, 23, of Cincinnati, Ohio escaped from the Conecuh County Jail in Evergreen, Ala. by using a magnet from a small radio to get a file that he used to saw the bars out of his cell’s window.

March 22, 1957 – In an incident attributed to the “Dragon’s Triangle,” a U.S. military transport plane vanished southeast of Japan.

March 22, 1958 - Hank Williams Jr. made his stage debut in Swainsboro, Ga. at the age of eight.

March 22-29, 1960 - The trial of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, the subjects of Truman Capote’s book “In Cold Blood,” took place at the county courthouse in Garden City, Kansas. They were both convicted of the mass murder after the jury deliberated for only 45 minutes. Their conviction carried a mandatory death sentence during that time.

March 22, 1962 – Tallassee Tribune publisher Herve Charest Jr., a widely-known Alabama weekly newspaper publisher, civic worker and humorist, was scheduled to be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce on this Thursday night at the Evergreen Recreation Center. W.T. (Jack) Wild was Chamber president.

March 22, 1965 - Bob Dylan's first electric album, "Bring it All Back Home," was released.

March 22, 1965 - The State Department acknowledged that the United States had supplied the South Vietnamese armed forces with a “non-lethal gas which disables temporarily” for use “in tactical situations in which the Viet Cong intermingle with or take refuge among non-combatants, rather than use artillery or aerial bombardment.” This announcement triggered a storm of criticism worldwide. The North Vietnamese and the Soviets loudly protested the introduction of “poison gas” into the war. Secretary of State Dean Rusk insisted at a news conference on March 24 that the United States was “not embarking upon gas warfare,” but was merely employing “a gas which has been commonly adopted by the police forces of the world as riot-control agents.”

March 22, 1966 - Lee Roy Jordan, former All-American at the University of Alabama and a graduate of Excel High School, was scheduled to be the guest speaker at the Monroeville (Ala.) Tiger Booster Club on this Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at the Monroe County Courthouse. Jordan was playing professional football with the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League. R.C. Otterberg was president of the Tiger Booster Club.

March 22, 1968 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the appointment of Gen. William Westmoreland as Army Chief of Staff; Gen. Creighton Abrams replaced him as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. As Westmoreland’s successor, Abrams faced the difficult task of implementing the Vietnamization program instituted by the Nixon administration. This included the gradual reduction of American forces in Vietnam while attempting to increase the combat capabilities of the South Vietnamese armed forces.

March 22, 1972 - The second movie version of Alabama author James H. Street's story "The Biscuit Eater" was released.

March 22, 1975 – A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama caused a dangerous reduction in cooling water levels.

March 22, 1976 – Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon was born in New Orleans, La.

March 22, 1982 - Twenty-six senior citizens were injured and their church bus destroyed when it flipped and landed in a 12-foot-deep median south of Evergreen, Ala. The group from the First Baptist Church of Boaz was en route to Bellingrath Gardens south of Mobile about 2 p.m. when the driver lost control of the 1972 Chevrolet bus about 10 miles south of Evergreen on rain-slick Interstate 65. All passengers of the bus were injured. Six passengers were admitted to D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital in Brewton, and five others were admitted to Evergreen Hospital. One woman was transferred from Evergreen to St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery.

March 22, 1984 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Pvt. Tracy L. Hawsey, the son of Jimmy A. and Glenda Hawsey of 113 Desplous St. in Evergreen, Ala., had completed an ammunition storage course at the U.S. Army Missile and Munitions Center and School at Redstone Arsenal. Hawsey, a 1983 graduate of Evergreen High School, would eventually be elected Conecuh County Sheriff.

March 22, 1986 – John Shepherd Salter, 89, of Evergreen, Ala. died in a VA hospital in Montgomery after a long illness. He was a World War I veteran and a retired employee of the City of Evergreen.

March 22, 1987 – Major League Baseball first baseman Ike Davis was born in Edina, Minnesota.

March 22, 1991 – The Creagh-Glover Family Cemetery near Catherine in Wilcox County, Ala. was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.

March 22, 1993 - Cleveland Indians pitchers Steve Olin and Tim Crews were killed in a boating accident in Florida. Bob Ojeda was also seriously injured in the accident.

March 22, 1994 - The NFL announced the addition of the two-point conversion. It was the league's first scoring change in 75 seasons.

March 22, 1997 – The Comet Hale-Bopp had its closest approach to Earth.

March 22, 2006 – Three Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity and the murder of their colleague from the U.S., Tom Fox.

March 22, 2012 – Buddy Raines discovered the “Mystery Track of Loree” in a field adjacent to his home in Conecuh County, Ala.