Today in History for April 24, 2016

Francis Lieber

April 24, 1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, was published in Boston, Mass.

April 24, 1781 - British General William Phillips landed on the banks of the James River at City Port, Va. He then combined forces with British General Benedict Arnold to launch an attack on Petersburg, Va.

April 24, 1800 – The United States Library of Congress was established when President John Adams signed legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress." Congress ordered 740 books and three maps from London, and in just over a decade, the library had more than 3,000 items. Today, the Library of Congress has 650 miles of shelves, and 150 million items, including more than 35 million books.

April 24, 1815 – Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope was born in London, England.

April 24, 1821 – Daniel Bozeman became postmaster at Burnt Corn Spring, Ala.

April 24, 1827 – Israel Pickens, the third governor of Alabama, passed away at the age of 47 in Matanzas, Cuba. He was originally buried in a family graveyard but his remains were later moved to City Cemetery, Greensboro, Ala.

April 24, 1844 - Alabama author Clifford Lanier was born in Griffin, Ga.

April 24, 1861 – The Conecuh Guards mustered at Sparta, Ala. and were presented a flag from the ladies of the community at the Sparta Depot before departing for Lynchburg, Va.

April 24, 1861 - These were anxiety filled days in the capital of the United States. Virginia had seceded on one side. If Maryland did the same, the capital was defenseless. A gunboat kept steam up at all times in case the President and Cabinet should need to flee.

April 24, 1862 - Seventeen ships under the command of Union Admiral David Farragut moved up the Mississippi River past two Confederate forts toward New Orleans. Only one ship was lost.

April 24, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought in the vicinity of Corinth, Miss.; at Lick Creek, Tenn. in the vicinity of the Shiloh battlefield; on the Shelbyville Road in Tennessee; and in the vicinity of Harrisonburg, Va.

April 24, 1862 - Union Admiral David Farragut had been trying to shell the Confederates out of the two forts below New Orleans, La. for a week now. On this night he set out to run past them anyway. The barricades, chains stretched across the river, had been damaged enough that ships could slip past. Moving at 2 a.m, all but three small vessels of his flotilla managed to make their way above the forts. He scattered some Confederate ships and sailed to New Orleans the next day, capturing one of the Confederacy's major cities with barely a shot fired.

April 24, 1863 - Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson's troops tore up tracks and destroyed two trainloads of ammunition headed for Vicksburg, Miss.

April 24, 1863 - The Union army issues General Orders No. 100, which provided a code of conduct for Federal soldiers and officers when dealing with Confederate prisoners and civilians. The code was borrowed by many European nations, and its influence can be seen on the Geneva Convention. The orders were the brainchild of Francis Lieber, a Prussian immigrant whose three sons had served during the Civil War.

April 24, 1863 – During the Civil War, like all governments, that of the Confederate States of America was faced with the obligation of raising funds to support its operations. When the operations included fighting a war for independence, it became a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures. On this day, a “tax in kind” was enacted, requiring a one-tenth contribution of all produce of the land.

April 24, 1863 – During the Civil war, a month-long Federal operation against Indians in the Owen’s River and adjacent valleys began in California.

April 24, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Garlandville and Birmingham, Miss. as part of the Grierson raid; out from St. Louis, Mo. along the Iron Mountain Railroad; on the Edenton Road in the vicinity of Suffolk, Va.; in and around Gilmer County, West Virginia; near Lake Saint Joseph, La.

April 24, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought near Decatur, Ala.; in the vicinity of Camden, Ark.; near Pineville, La.; and in the vicinity of Middletown, Va. A two-day Federal operation between Ringgold and La Fayette, Ga. began.

April 24, 1865 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Rodger’s Plantation, Ark. and at Linn Creek, Mo.

April 24, 1865 – U.S. General William T. Sherman learned of President Johnson's rejection of his surrender terms to Joe Johnston. General Grant, who personally delivered the message, ordered Sherman to commence operations against Johnson within 48 hours. Sherman was incensed but obeyed orders.

April 24, 1868 - Author William Garrott Brown was born in Marion, Ala.

April 24, 1877 - Federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, bringing an end to the North's post-Civil War rule in the South.

April 24, 1895 – Philadelphia Phillies catcher Douglas Woolley “Dixie” Parker was born in Forest Home in Butler County, Ala.

April 24, 1895 – Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, set sail from Boston, Mass. aboard the sloop "Spray".

April 24, 1898 - Spain declared war on the U.S., rejecting America's ultimatum for Spain to withdraw from Cuba.

April 24, 1905 – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren was born in Guthrie, Ky.

April 24, 1906 – American-born Irish-British Nazi propaganda broadcaster William Joyce was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

April 24, 1907 - The one-of-a-kind Hershey Park opened its doors. However, unlike today, back then the amusement park was not for the general public, instead it was meant to be a leisure center exclusively for Hershey Candy Company employees.

April 24-25, 1908 - In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, 310 people were killed by 18 tornadoes.

April 24, 1912 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Prof. J.T. McKee of Cullman had been elected President of the Agricultural School in Evergreen, Ala., succeeding Prof. H.T. Lile.

April 24, 1915 – On this Saturday afternoon, “quite a crowd of boys and girls attended the baseball game” in the Brownville community of Conecuh County, Ala.

April 24, 1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launched a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for the ice-trapped ship Endurance.

April 24, 1918 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Eugene Binion of Evergreen, Ala. and John Peagler of Conecuh County’s China community had been wounded by Germans while fighting overseas in World War I.

April 24, 1922 - Alabama’s first radio station, WSY, began broadcasting. The station was started by Alabama Power Company to help keep in touch with line crews in isolated areas. In 1925, the station merged with Auburn’s WMAV to become WAPI.

April 24, 1933 – The season’s shipment of Castleberry, Ala. strawberries topped the 100-car mark on this day as 10 more cars of strawberries were loaded. The total number of cars after April 25 stood at 111 cars, which was 78 less than in 1932.

April 24, 1933 – Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

April 24, 1934 - Acclaimed actress and paranormal enthusiast Shirley MacLaine was born in Richmond, Va.

April 24, 1940 – Mystery novelist Sue Grafton was born in Louisville, Ky.

April 24, 1947 – Evergreen High School’s baseball team improved to 1-1 on the season with a 10-7 win over Monroe County High School. James Carpenter got the pitching win. Ivey, Jones and Cunningham led Evergreen’s offense with two hits each.

April 24, 1947 – German SS officer Hans Biebow was executed by hanging.

April 24, 1948 – Funeral services were held at 11 a.m. on this Saturday for Sgt. John W. Morgan, who had been killed in Europe during World War II, at Asbury Church in Conecuh County, Ala. Members of the National Guard and American Legion acted as pallbearers.

April 24, 1948 – Novelist and journalist Clare Boylan was born in Dublin.

April 24, 1955 - Mixonville, of the Conecuh Amateur Baseball League, beat Lyeffion, 19-10, on this Sunday at Mixonville. Mixonville scored seven runs in the first inning off Lyeffion right-hander Gene Davis. Mixonville’s big righthander, Charlie Roberts, turned in a marvelous piece of pitching until the eighth when he had to be relieved by southpaw Lavail Robinson. Roberts struck out 11 batters and allowed only five hits during his pitching stint. Stuckey, Mixon, Lane and H. Pugh led the batting for Mixonville.

April 24, 1961 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers struck out 18 batters, becoming the first Major League pitcher to do so on two different occasions.

April 24, 1967 - At a news conference in Washington, General William Westmoreland, senior U.S. commander in South Vietnam, caused controversy by saying that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.” Though he said that, “Ninety-five percent of the people were behind the United States effort in Vietnam,” he asserted that the American soldiers in Vietnam were “dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts at home.” This criticism of the antiwar movement was not received well by many in and out of the antiwar movement, who believed it was both their right and responsibility to speak out against the war.

April 24, 1971 - North Vietnamese troops hit Allied installations throughout South Vietnam. In the most devastating attack, the ammunition depot at Qui Nhon was blown up. On April 27, the aviation fuel tanks at Da Nang air base were attacked by communist gunners, resulting in explosions and a fire that destroyed a large proportion of the fuel stored there. In the following three days, 54 South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were reported killed, and 185 wounded. The United States reported seven dead and 60 wounded.

April 24, 1972 – Major League Baseball third baseman and left fielder Chipper Jones was born in DeLand, Fla. He would go on to play his entire career for the Atlanta Braves.

April 24, 1989 – Miss Alabama USA 2012 and model Katherine Webb was born in Montgomery, Ala.

April 24, 1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope, one of NASA's longest lasting science missions, was launched. Funding for the mission to build and launch a large space telescope was approved by Congress in 1977. NASA chose Mashall Space Flight Center in Alabama to manage the design, development, and construction of telescope. The telescope was officially named in honor of Edwin P. Hubble, one of America's foremost astronomers, in 1983. Since its launch, Hubble has beamed hundreds of thousands of images back to Earth and transformed the way scientists look at the universe.

April 24, 1999 - The first Alabama Bound book fair was held in Birmingham, Ala.

April 24, 1999 – Evergreen’s Little League was scheduled to hold its opening day ceremonies on this Saturday at 10 a.m. at Evergreen City Park.

April 24, 2000 – A ground-breaking ceremony was held at the site of the EverFun playground site at Evergreen Municipal Park in Evergreen, Ala. Mayor Lomax Cassady and Zebbie Nix unearthed the first two shovelfuls of dirt and the work began.

April 24, 2003 – Army Sgt. Troy Jenkins, age 25, a graduate of Hillcrest High School in Evergreen, Ala., died from wounds received as a result of an explosion April 19, 2003 while on a dismounted patrol with other soldiers in Iraq. He died at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He was assigned to B Co., 3rd Bat., 187th Inf. Reg., Ft. Campbell, Ky. He was buried in Riverside, Calif.

April 24, 2007 - The 35th Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force executed a search warrant at a residence on Magnolia Avenue in Evergreen, Ala. and seized 29 grams of methamphetamine ice, one of the purest forms of methamphetamine. To qualify as ice, the meth must be at least 98 percent pure.