Today in History for March 27, 2016

Union General Frederick Steele

March 27, 1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reached the northern end of the Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.

March 27, 1775 - Future President Thomas Jefferson was elected to the second Continental Congress. Jefferson, a Virginia delegate, quickly established himself in the Continental Congress with the publication of his paper entitled “A Summary View of the Rights of British America.” Throughout the next year, Jefferson published several more papers, most notably “Drafts and Notes on the Virginia Constitution.”

March 27, 1776 - The British left Boston and sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia.

March 27, 1794 – The United States Congress and President George Washington established a permanent navy and authorized the building of six frigates.

March 27, 1814 – During the War of 1812, in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend was found in Central Alabama. Andrew Jackson led a force of Americans, Creeks and Cherokees against Red Stick Creeks which were led by Chief Menawa. Attacking the Red Stick stronghold of Tohopeka on the banks of the Tallapoosa River, Jackson's men killed more than 900 people. The victory soon led to the end of the Creek War and the cession of 23 million acres of Creek territory to the United States.

March 27, 1815 - Alabama author William Russell Smith was born in Russellville, Ky.

March 27, 1820 - English admiral and explorer Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield was born in Cheltenham, England. He led one of the searches for the missing Arctic explorer John Franklin during the 1850s. In doing so, his expedition charted previously unexplored areas along the northern Canadian coastline, including Baffin Bay, Smith Sound and Lancaster Sound.

March 27, 1825 – During his tour of the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette spent the night at the Gachet House in Lamar County, Georgia.

March 27, 1834 – French explorer and mountaineer Pierre Gaspard was born in Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans, France.

March 27, 1836 – During the Texas Revolution’s “Goliad Massacre,” on the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army butchered 342 Texas POWs at Goliad, Texas.

March 27, 1844 – American general, explorer and Medal of Honor recipient Adolphus Greely was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

March 27, 1862 – During the Civil War, a five-day Federal operation began on and around Santa Rosa Island, Fla.

March 27, 1862 - A five-day Federal operation between Middleburg and White Plains, Va. began. Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder was known as “Prince John” for his rather flamboyant approach to life in general and his uniform in particular. He was in charge of forces on the Peninsula as McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was inching its way toward Richmond, Va. In consequence thereof, General Joseph E. Johnston was ordered from Richmond to reinforce him.

March 27, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Palatka, Fla.; in the vicinity of Madisonville, Ky.; along the Rio Bonito in the New Mexico Territory; and along the Woodbury Pike, Tenn.

March 27, 1864 – During the Civil War, Secretary of the Navy Welles sent orders to the USS Wyoming, docked in Baltimore, Md. Her commander, John P. Bankhead, was instructed to sail in search of the CSS Shenandoah, Lt. Waddell commanding. The last report of the location of Shenandoah had her leaving Melbourne, Australia, and that report was five weeks old.

March 27, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Branchville, Brook’s Mill, Little Rock and Benton, Ark.; with Indians along the Eel River in California; in the vicinity of Columbus, Ky.; at Livingston, Miss., which was located 14 miles north of present day Ackerman, Miss.; at Deepwater Township, Mo.; and at Louisville, Tenn. A four-day Federal operation including Pine Bluff, Mount Elba and Long View, Ark. also began.

March 27, 1864 - Several times during the Civil War there were outbreaks of fighting against the government by its own citizens who sympathized with the “other side.” One such occurred overnight and into tomorrow in Charleston, in central Illinois. “A dreadful affair took place in our town”, the local newspaper said, when a group of about 100 Copperheads attacked Federal troops who were home on leave. Five were killed and more than 20 wounded before reinforcements arrived and restored order.

March 27, 1865 – During the Civil War, Union Major General Frederick Steele’s column from Pensacola, Fla. reached Canoe Station near Atmore, Ala. and encamped.

March 27, 1865 – During the Civil War, Union Gen. E.R.S. Canby, with 32,000 men, laid siege to Spanish Fort. The siege would last for 13 days.

March 27, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln met with Union generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman at City Point, Virginia to plot the last stages of the Civil War. Lincoln went to Virginia just as Grant was preparing to attack Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s lines around Petersburg and Richmond, an assault that promised to end the siege that had dragged on for 10 months. Meanwhile, Sherman’s force was steamrolling northward through the Carolinas. The three architects of Union victory convened for the first time as a group–Lincoln and Sherman had never met—at Grant’s City Point headquarters at the general-in-chief’s request. Less than four weeks later, Grant and Sherman had secured the surrender of the Confederacy.

March 27, 1865 – A three-day Federal operation between Winchester and Woodstock, Va. began.

March 27, 1868 – Patty Smith Hill, who wrote the song “Happy Birthday to You,” was born in Anchorage, Ky.

March 27, 1879 – National Baseball Hall of Fame second baseman and manager Miller Huggins was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He would go on to play for the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals and also managed the Cardinals and the New York Yankees. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1964.

March 27, 1884 – German zoologist and explorer Richard Böhm passed away at the age of 29 in Katapana, Katanga.

March 27, 1886 – Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrendered to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.

March 27, 1896 - At the Monroe County (Ala.) Courthouse, by special request, on this Friday evening, Robinson, the “Lightning Charcoal Artist,” was scheduled to appear in “a refined exhibition of rapid freehand drawing, introducing dexterous left and right hand sketches. Portraits, landscapes, caricatures, etc. will constitute the program, and an interesting and instructive entertainment is promised. To each person upon entering the door will be furnished a chance in the prize picture. The holder of the lucky number will be given a lifesize nicely finished portrait and frame.”

March 27, 1899 - The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.

March 27, 1904 - On Sunday evening, while he was visiting the home of a crony, Alderman Gray, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, H.P. Lovecraft’s grandfather, was seized by a “paralytic shock,” likely a stroke. He died the following day, near midnight at his home at 454 Angell Street in Providence, R.I.

March 27, 1910 – In Lovecraftian fiction, Edith Brendall disappeared from Bonn, Germany and her body was discovered in the Rhine River on April 4 of the same year.

March 27, 1912 – President William Howard Taft’s wife, Helen Herron Taft, and the wife of the ambassador from Japan planted the first of Washington, D.C.’s cherry trees. The cuttings were scions from the most famous trees in Tokyo, the ones that grow along the banks of the Arakawa River. Workers took over, and thousands of cherry trees, all gifts from the Japanese government, were planted around the Tidal Basin.

March 27, 1913 – German SS officer Theodor Dannecker was born in Tübingen, a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

March 27, 1915 – Conecuh County Sheriff Williams and Deputy Davis arrested Finley Cowling near Brooklyn, Ala. for the alleged theft of a horse belonging to Dr. M.M. Strickland of Minter in Dallas County. The horse was recovered and Cowling was placed in jail.

March 27, 1915 – J.D. Skinner of Belleville, Ala. reported that while traveling from his home to Bermuda a few days before he saw “quantities of boll weevils flying about. If any great number come out of hibernation this early they will die out before they get something to feed on.”

March 27, 1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, was put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

March 27, 1916 - Author Catherine Rodgers was born in Camp Hill, Ala.

March 27, 1916 – Allen Page, who had been appointed notary public and justice of the peace at Castleberry, was in Evergreen, Ala. on business on this Monday.

March 27, 1923 – Poet Louis Simpson was born in Kingston, Jamaica.

March 27, 1927 – Explorer and biologist William Healey Dall died at the age of 81 in Washington, D.C.

March 27, 1928 – Confederate veteran Thomas Smallwood “T.S.” Hagood of Evergreen, Ala. passed away at the age of 80.

March 27, 1933 – Football coach Vince Gibson was born in Birmingham, Ala. He went on to play guard at Florida State and served as the head coach at Kansas State, Louisville and Tulane.

March 27, 1943 - Author Perry Lentz was born in Anniston, Ala.

March 27, 1947 – The Monroe Journal reported that W.A. Hendrix of Monroeville, Ala. and Fred T. McClendon of Union Springs, who owned and operated a circuit of some 30 theaters in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, were having a modern new theater built in Frisco City, Ala. Construction started that week and the management hoped to open in June. The new theater planned to operate on a full time basis with the latest and best movies.

March 27, 1947 – The Monroe Journal reported that C.E. Hart of Flomaton, Ala., the owner of the Hart Sand & Gravel Co., was opening a place of business on Double Branch between the creek and the Frisco Railroad on the Monroeville-Old Salem road. Earlier that week a bin with a capacity of 22 yards of gravel had been constructed and sand and gravel washing bins were in the process of construction. It was expected that two six-inch pumps would be installed to pump the gravel and sand from the creek bed and the surrounding area into the wash bins and from there to bins for sand and gravel, after it had passed over the screens.

March 27, 1950 - Novelist and poet Julia Alvarez was born in New York City.

March 27, 1952 – Truman Capote's stage adaptation of his novel, “The Grass Harp,” directed by Robert Lewis, opened at Broadway's Martin Beck Theatre, where it ran for 36 performances.

March 27, 1956 – On this Tuesday morning, the U.S. Navy began using Middleton Field in Evergreen, Ala. “as a training field again,” according to The Evergreen Courant.

March 27, 1956 – English cosmologist and academic John A. Peacock was born in Shaftesbury, England.

March 27, 1963 – Director Quentin Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tenn.

March 27, 1964 - The “Good Friday Earthquake” killed 131 people in Alaska. Lasting almost five minutes, it was the most powerful recorded quake in U.S. history-- 8.4 on the Richter scale.

March 27, 1965 – A plane crash near the Drewry community in Monroe County, Ala. claimed the lives of Reuben Ludger Lapeyrouse, 33, and Keaton C. Hardy, 43, both of Mobile. A third man, Clay Medley Godwin, 22, of Mobile survived the crash, but died a short time later. Lapeyrouse was the head of the Lapeyrouse Grain Corporation, and Godwin worked in the office at Lapeyrouse Grain Corp.

March 27, 1965 - Following several days of consultations with the Cambodian government, South Vietnamese troops, supported by artillery and air strikes, launched their first major military operation into Cambodia. The South Vietnamese encountered a 300-man Viet Cong force in the Kandal province and reported killing 53 communist soldiers. Two teams of U.S. helicopter gunships took part in the action. Three South Vietnamese soldiers were killed and seven wounded.

March 27, 1969 – The Evergreen Courant reported that six members of Boy Scout Troop 40 in Evergreen, Ala. were inducted into the Order of the Arrow during the recent Alabama-Florida Spring Camporee.

March 27, 1969 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Spec-5 Lowell Jernigan had received the Army Commendation Medal for Meritorious Service. Jernigan, a 1964 graduate of Evergreen High School and later the University of Alabama, was an instructor at the Atomic Demolition Munitions Systems Branch, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Division, Dept. of Engineering and Military Science, U.S. Army Engineer School, at Ft. Belvoir, Va.

March 27, 1973 - The White House announced that, at the request of Cambodian President Lon Nol, the bombing of Cambodia would continue until communist forces ceased military operations and agreed to a cease-fire.

March 27, 1976 – The first segment of the Washington Metro opened, and some 50,000 people stood in line for hours to take a free ride on the Red Line, which ran from Rhode Island Avenue to the Farragut North underground station. The first segment ran for about four and a half miles, and the trip lasted less than 10 minutes. So many people tried to cram into the cars that the doors wouldn’t shut, and the trains stalled.

March 27, 1976 – NBA power forward Danny Fortson was born in Philadelphia, Pa. He would go on to play for the University of Cincinnati, the Denver Nuggets, the Boston Celtics, the Golden State Warriors, the Dallas Mavericks and the Seattle SuperSonics.

March 27, 1977 - Two 747s collided on a foggy runway in the Canary Islands in the worst accident in aviation history -- 583 died.

March 27, 1981 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan hosted a luncheon honoring the members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

March 27, 1986 – The Evergreen Courant reported that State Representative J.E. “Jimmy” Warren of Castleberry, Ala. had qualified to seek re-election to the Alabama House of Representatives. Warren, first elected in 1970, was seeking his fifth term in office.

March 27, 1986 – NFL linebacker Titus Brown was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He went on to play for Mississippi State and the Cleveland Browns.

March 27, 1989 - Sport Illustrated exposed Pete Rose's gambling activities. The magazine article alleged Rose bet on baseball from the Riverfront dugout using hand gestures with an associate.

March 27, 1994 - Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina were hit by a series of tornadoes that killed 42 people.

March 27, 1994 – A church in Piedmont, Ala. collapsed during a tornado, and 19 people inside were killed.

March 27, 2001 – Stanley Guy Busby, 75, of Repton, Ala. died at Monroe County Hospital. Busby, who ran a dairy for many years, was a driver for Poole Truck Line and a retired CDL instructor from Reid State Technical College. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War.

March 27, 2007 - NFL owners voted, 30-2, to make the video replay system a permanent officiating tool.

March 27, 2012 – Evergreen, Ala. city officials presented local basketball star Chris Hines with a special proclamation and key to the city during a special ceremony at Evergreen City Hall.