Today in History for May 22, 2016

U.S. General Darius Couch

May 22, 1724 – French cartographer and explorer March-Joseph Marion du Fresne was born in St Malo, Brittany, France. He made important discoveries in the south Indian Ocean, in Tasmania and in New Zealand. Du Fresne was killed by Maori in 1772.

May 22, 1762 – Trevi Fountain in Rome was officially completed and inaugurated by Pope Clemens XIII.

May 22, 1781 - Partiots began a seige of Ninety Six, South Carolina. They retreated on June 18. This was the longest battle of American Revolutionary War.

May 22, 1783 – Anderson Crenshaw, who lived near Manningham in Butler County from 1821 to his death in 1847 and was the first attorney to settle in Butler County, was born in Newbury District, S.C. He was the first graduate of what is now the University of South Carolina. He moved to Cahawba in 1819. There, he was appointed a judge of the circuit court from 1821–1838, of the state supreme court from 1832, and as chancellor of the southern division of the state's courts. After his death in 1847, Crenshaw County was named in his honor.

May 22, 1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.

May 22, 1807 – A grand jury indicted former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

May 22, 1814 – British explorer Erasmus Ommanney was born in London, England He went on to become a Royal Navy officer and an Arctic explorer of the Victorian era.

May 22, 1819 – The SS Savannah left port at Savannah, Georgia on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship arrived at Liverpool, England, on June 20.

May 22, 1826 – The HMS Beagle departed on its first voyage.

May 22, 1843 – One thousand pioneers headed west on the Oregon Trail in what is now known as the “Great Migration.”

May 22, 1848 – Slavery was abolished in Martinique.

May 22, 1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.

May 22, 1856 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas. In his speech, Sumner made comments about South Carolina Senator Andrew D. Butler, Brooks' cousin, in Butler's absence. The comments were related to the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed the two new territories to decide the slave issue by vote.

May 22, 1859 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of fictional character “Sherlock Holmes,” was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

May 22, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at the Trenton and Pollocksville Cross Roads, N.C.; and at Winchester, Tenn.

May 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, during the Siege of Port Hudson, Union forces began to lay siege to the Confederate-controlled Port Hudson, Louisiana.

May 22, 1863 - The War Department established the Bureau of Colored Troops to recruit and assemble black regiments.

May 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, after 10 weeks, the Union Army's Red River Campaign ended with the Union unable to achieve any of its objectives.

May 22, 1864 – Early Conecuh County settler Chesley Crosby died at his home between Belleville and Sparta.

May 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, the second assault against Vicksburg, Miss. was carried out as the Siege of Vicksburg entered day four.

May 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, the Battle of Port Gibson, Miss. took place.

May 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Bentonville, Ark.; and at Middleton and on Yellow Creek, Tenn.

May 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, the last day of the Union Demonstration against Kinston, North Carolina took place.

May 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln offered command of the Army of the Potomac to Darius Couch. Couch refused, but recommended George Meade.

May 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought near Mount Pleasant, Miss., and an affair took place near Devall's Bluff, Ark.

May 22, 1865 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe in Virginia.

May 22, 1865 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought at Valley Mines, Mo.

May 22, 1868 - Near Marshfield, Indiana, the "Great Train Robbery" took place. The robbery was worth $96,000 in cash, gold and bonds to the seven members of the Reno gang.

May 22, 1872 – During Reconstruction, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Amnesty Act into law restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.

May 22, 1900 - The Associated Press was incorporated as a non-profit news cooperative in New York.

May 22, 1901 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt announced that he would support the International Court at the Hague in its settlement of the U.S.'s debt dispute with Mexico.

May 22, 1902 – National Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Al Simmons was born in Milwaukee, Wisc. He went on to play for the Philadelphia Athletics, the Chicago White Sox, the Detroit Tigers, the Washington Senators, the Boston Braves, the Cincinnati Reds and the Bost Red Sox. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1953.

May 22, 1905 – The James Shelby Show gave two exhibitions in Monroeville, Ala. at 1:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Admission was 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for children.

May 22, 1906 – The Wright brothers were granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine."

May 22, 1927 – Writer Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City.

May 22, 1941 – During the Anglo-Iraqi War, British troops took Fallujah.

May 22, 1942 – During World War II, Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a flight instructor.

May 22, 1942 - Theodore John Kaczynski, aka “The Unabomber,” was born in Chicago.

May 22, 1954 – National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Chief Bender passed away at the age of 70 in Philadelphia, Pa. He played for the Philadelphia Athletics, the Baltimore Terrapins, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago White Sox. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1953.

May 22, 1960 - The Great Chilean Earthquake was the most powerful quake ever recorded, with a magnitude of 9.5.

May 22, 1961 - The Space Needle (built for the 1962 World's Fair) opened its revolving restaurant, now called SkyCity, on this day.

May 22, 1963 - The Evergreen Aggies wound up their baseball season in Red Level on this Wednesday afternoon with an 11-5 victory over the host Tigers to give them an 8-5 record for the season. The game ended on a sour note however as Aggie right fielder Donnie Jones ran into a light pole while chasing a fly ball and had to be taken to the Conecuh County Hospital in Evergreen. Jones’ twin brother, Ronnie was the winning pitcher as he pitched a three-hitter until the fifth inning when the game was called after Jones sustained the injury. Other players on Evergreen’s team that season included Johnny Brown, Scott Cook, Paul Deason, Mike Fields, Ronnie Jackson, Jimmy Raines and Willie Mack Pate.

May 22, 1964 - In a major speech before the American Law Institute in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Dean Rusk explicitly accused North Vietnam of initiating and directing the aggression in South Vietnam. U.S. withdrawal, said Rusk, “would mean not only grievous losses to the free world in Southeast and Southern Asia but a drastic loss of confidence in the will and capacity of the free world.” He concluded: “There is a simple prescription for peace–leave your neighbors alone.”

May 22, 1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sank with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores.

May 22, 1968 - Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit three home runs, a single and a double.

May 22, 1969 - Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 18th plenary session of the Paris peace talks, said he found common ground for discussion in the proposals of President Richard Nixon and the National Liberation Front. In reply, Nguyen Thanh Le, spokesman for the North Vietnamese, said the programs were “as different as day and night.” In the end, Nguyen Thanh Le’s observation was on target. The communists’ proposal and Nixon’s counteroffer were very different and there was, in fact, almost no common ground. Neither side relented and nothing meaningful came from this diplomatic exchange.

May 22, 1972 – Army Staff Sgt. Charles Donnette Gipson of Brewton, Ala. was killed in action in Vietnam.

May 22, 1973 – The Auburn University Chapel was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Auburn Players Theater. Built in 1851, it’s the second-oldest building and oldest building in its original location on the campus of Auburn University. During the Civil War, the building briefly served as a Confederate hospital for wounded soldiers, and legend says that the building is haunted by the ghost of Sydney Grimlett, an Englishman and Confederate soldier who died in the chapel during the time it served as a hospital.

May 22, 1975 - Joe Namath refused a $4 million offer to play for Chicago in the World Football League.

May 22, 1975 – National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Lefty Grove passed away at the age of 75 in Norwalk, Ohio. He played for the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Sox. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1947.

May 22, 1980 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Evergreen High School head basketball coach Charles Branum had been named the 1980 “Coach of the Year” by his fellow coaches in the Southwest Alabama Basketball Conference. EHS went 31-2 during the 1979-80 season and advanced to the semi-final round of the 3A state tournament in Tuscaloosa. Branum was also selected to coach the South 3A-4A team, which including Evergreen’s Perona Rankins, in the 1980 All State Game in Tuscaloosa in early August.

May 22, 1980 – Sparta Academy’s graduation exercises were scheduled for this Thursday night at 8 p.m. Alice Stevens was to deliver the commencement address, and diplomas were to be presented by Sparta headmaster Jack Miller. Selina Garvin was the valedictorian, and Lesa Ralls was the salutatorian.

May 22, 1980 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Melinda Litts was the valedictorian of the 1980 graduating class at Conecuh County High School in Castleberry, and Dwayne Godwin was the salutatorian.

May 22, 1985 - Pete Rose passed Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108.

May 22, 1986 – The Commercial Hotel (later known as the Hart Hotel and Flomaton Hotel) in Flomaton, Ala. was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

May 22, 1991 - The NFL owners agreed to add two new teams in 1994.

May 22, 2002 - Mark Prior became only the 14th Chicago Cubs player since 1920 to win his major league debut. The Cubs beat the Pirates, 7-4.

May 22, 2002 – In Washington, D.C., the remains of the missing Chandra Levy were found in Rock Creek Park.

May 22, 2002 – A jury in Birmingham, Ala. convicted former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of murder for his part in the bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Cherry was the last living suspect to be prosecuted for the Sept. 15, 1963, blast that killed 11-year-old Denise McNair, and 14-year-olds Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins.

May 22, 2002 - Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit his 583rd career home run. He tied Mark McGwire for fifth on the all-time list.

May 22, 2008 – The C.L. Hybart House and Monroe County Library, both in Monroeville, Ala., were added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage

May 22, 2010 – Town of Oak Grove, Ala. dedicated a historical marker at the site of the Hodges meteorite site.

  

May 22, 2015 – Ukrainian-Canadian SS officer Vladimir Katriuk died at the age of 93 in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada.