Today in History for May 6, 2016

William Colby

May 6, 1536 – The Siege of Cuzco commenced in which Incan forces attempted to retake the city of Cuzco from the Spanish.

May 6, 1536 – King Henry VIII ordered English-language Bibles be placed in every church.

May 6, 1775 - New Jersey Royal Governor William Franklin wrote that the violence at Lexington and Concord greatly diminished the chances of reconciliation between Britain and her North American colonies.

May 6, 1778 - Continental Army Colonel Ethan Allen returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange. He had been captured by the British on Sept. 27, 1776.

May 6, 1835 – James Gordon Bennett Sr. published the first issue of The New York Herald.

May 6, 1851 – John D. Morrissette died near Houston, Texas. A veteran of the War of 1812, he was an early Monroe County lawyer and planter. He was elected to the state legislature in 1829 and state senate in 1845 and 1849.

May 6, 1856 – American explorer Robert Peary was born in Cresson, Pa. He claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole with his expedition on April 6, 1909.

May 6, 1956 – Sigmund Freud was born in Freiburg, Moravia.

May 6, 1859 – German geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt passed away at the age of 89 in Berlin. Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.

May 6, 1861 – During the Civil War, Richmond, Virginia was declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.

May 6, 1861 - The long-expected became actual on this day as the legislatures of Tennessee and Arkansas both passed Ordinances of Secession from the Union. Based on which one was ruled to have acted earlier, Tennessee became the ninth and Arkansas the tenth members of the Confederate States of America. The real question was whether Kentucky and Missouri would follow their neighbors’ lead. Strong efforts were underway both to assure and prevent this outcome.

May 6, 1862 - Union forces occupied Williamsburg, Virginia.

May 6, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought on White River in Arkansas; near Harrisonburg, Va.; and in the vicinity of Camp McDonald and Arnoldsburg, West Virginia.

May 6, 1863 – During the Civil War, the Battle of Chancellorsville ended with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by Confederate troops.

May 6, 1863 – Joseph Tarpley Peacock, who was the father of Lewis Lavon Peacock, filed a claim on behalf of his son James T. Peacock, who died on Feb. 2, 1863 while serving with the Third Alabama.

May 6, 1863 - A nine-day Federal operation between the White and St. Francis Rivers, Ark. began. A Federal operation between Bowling Green, Ky. to the Tennessee state line began. Skirmishes were fought at Warrenton, Va. and at West Union, West Virginia.

May 6, 1864 - In the opening battle in the biggest campaign of the Civil War, Union and Confederate troops continued their desperate struggle in the Wilderness forest in Virginia. General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces, had joined George Meade’s Army of the Potomac to encounter Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the tangled Wilderness forest near Chancellorsville, the site of Lee’s brilliant victory the year before. The fighting was intense, and raging fires that consumed the dead and wounded magnified the horror of battle. But little was gained in the confused attacks by either side. In two days, the Union lost 17,000 men to the Confederates’ 11,000. This was nearly one-fifth of each army.

May 6, 1864 – A number of the members of the Conecuh Guards were killed or wounded on this day during the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. Augustus Johnston and Newton Snowden were killed in the battle. 2nd Lt. John S. Stearns, 2nd Sgt. Alfred H. Floyd, 3rd Cpl. James Robertson, M.A. Cooper, Henry C. Chapman and Stephen Quinley were wounded. Stearns, who was also wounded in Knoxville, Tenn. in November 1863, died in 1880. Floyd lost a leg due to the wounds he received at the Wilderness, was honorably discharged and later moved to Texas. Chapman was placed on the retired list and moved to Texas after the war. Cooper and Quinley also moved to Texas after the war.

May 6, 1864 – Lt. Col. Hilary Abner Herbert of Greenville, Ala. received a severe, disabling wound in his left arm at the Battle of the Wilderness. He would go on to serve as a U.S. Representative from Alabama’s Second Congressional District and as Secretary of the Navy under Grover Cleveland.

May 6, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought with Indians near Boynton’s Prairie, Calif.; at Tampa, Fla.; at Tunnel Hill, Ga.; in the vicinity of Morganfield, Ky.; at Bayou Lamourie, at Boyce’s Plantation, in the Calcasieu Pass, Napoleonville and at Well’s Plantation, La.; near Bloomfield, Mo.; near City Point, Port Walthall Junction and Chester Station, Va.; and at Princeton, West Virginia. A five-day Federal operation between Patterson, Mo. and Cherokee Bay, Ark. began.

May 6, 1865 – During the Civil War, Federal reconnaissance was conducted from Richmond to Staunton and Charlottesville, Va.

May 6, 1868 – French journalist and novelist Gaston Leroux was born in Paris.

May 6, 1889 – The Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

May 6, 1899 – The “Spanish Evacuation Centennial” was held at St. Stephens, Ala., which at the time was only a wilderness with a few overgrown ruins. 

May 6, 1901 – The dispensation (organizational) meeting for Repton Mason Lodge No. 575 was held in Repton, Ala.

May 6, 1903 - The Chicago White Sox committed 12 errors against the Detroit Tigers.

May 6, 1907 – Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Weeb Ewbank was born in Richmond, Indiana. He went on to coach the Baltimore Colts and the New York Jets. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978.

May 6, 1914 – Poet and critic Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tenn.

May 6, 1915 – Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisc.

May 6, 1915 – The Monroe Journal reported that “beginning the first week in May, merchants of the city began observance of the rule of six o’clock closing, except on Saturdays, thus affording proprietors and employees an opportunity for needed recreation.”

May 6, 1915 – Babe Ruth hit his first Major League home run while pitching for the Boston Red Sox. The game was also his pitching debut.

May 6, 1915 – The Monroe Journal reported that Monroeville city officials were having the downtown square enclosed to prevent damage to the surface by vehicles. The square had recently been graded and the surrounding walks “nicely graveled.”

May 6, 1920 - Dramatist William Berney was born in Birmingham, Ala.

May 6, 1925 - Ty Cobb hit his fifth home run in only two games. The feat tied Cap Anson's record in 1884.

May 6, 1929 - The American League announced that it would discontinue the MVP award.

May 6, 1931 – National Baseball Hall of Fame center fielder Willie Mays was born in Westfield, just outside of Bessemer, Ala. He went on to play for the New York/San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1979.

May 6, 1934 - The Boston Red Sox hit a record of four consecutive triples.

May 6, 1935 – As part of the “New Deal,” Executive Order 7034 createed the Works Progress Administration.

May 6, 1937 - The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people were killed.

May 6, 1938 – The Panama City Pels baseball team beat the Evergreen Greenies, 12-0, in Panama City on this Friday night.

May 6, 1940 – John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel “The Grapes of Wrath.”

May 6, 1946 - The New York Yankees became the first Major League Baseball team to travel by plane.

May 6, 1954 – Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

May 6, 1957 - U.S. Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Profiles in Courage.”

May 6, 1957 - Alabama journalist Buford Boone of The Tuscaloosa News was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Reporting for his editorials on segregation.

May 6, 1967 – Army PFC Bobby Waits Cameron of Hayden in Butler County, Ala. was killed in action in Vietnam.

May 6, 1970- Hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation shut down as thousands of students joined a nationwide campus protest. The protests were a reaction to the shooting of four students at Kent State University by National Guardsmen during a campus demonstration about President Nixon’s decision to send U.S. and South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia. 

May 6, 1972 - The remnants of South Vietnam’s 5th Division at An Loc continued to receive daily artillery battering from the communist forces surrounding the city as reinforcements fought their way from the south up Highway 13. The South Vietnamese had been under heavy attack since the North Vietnamese had launched their Nguyen Hue Offensive on March 30. The communists had mounted a massive invasion of South Vietnam with 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles.

May 6, 1975 – Three armed men robbed the Union Bank of Castleberry, Ala. around noon and got away with about $6,400.

May 6, 1981 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selected Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.

May 6, 1983 – The “Hitler Diaries” were revealed as a hoax after examination by experts.

May 6, 1989 – The Third Annual Strawberry Festival was held in Castleberry, Ala. and “several thousand” visitors attended the event. In the five-mile run, Alan Ash was the top male finisher with a time of 30:16.03, and Dale Ash was to the top women’s finisher with a time of 36:09.30. In the three-mile run, Eddie Barton was the top male finisher, running the race in 18:09.30, and Melissa Denbow was the top female finisher, running the distance in 19:46.45.

May 6, 1992 - Anthony Young of the New York Mets began a losing streak of 26 games.

May 6, 1994 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiated at the opening of the Channel Tunnel, the tunnel under the English Channel that links England and France.

May 6, 1994 – Episode No. 23 of “The X-Files” – entitled “Roland” – aired for the first time.

May 6, 1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.

May 6, 1996 - The television program “My Son Is Innocent,” teleplay by Alabama author Robert Inman and Philip Rosenberg, was broadcast.

May 6, 1998 – Kerry Wood struck out 20 Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter and did not walk a batter in his fifth career start.

May 6, 2005 – James Leroy Stacey of Frisco City died at the age of 80 at Monroe County Hospital in Monroeville, Ala.

May 6, 2005 - The Harper Lee Award for Alabama's Distinguished Writer was given to Alabama author Andrew Hudgins at the Alabama Writers Symposium in Monroeville, Ala.

May 6, 2010 – National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts passed away at the age of 83 in Temple Terrace, Fla. During his playing career, he played for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles, the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976.