Sarah Bernhardt |
Nov. 8, 1519 – Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán and Aztec
ruler Moctezuma welcomed him with a great celebration.
Nov. 8, 1605 – Robert Catesby, ringleader of the Gunpowder
Plotters, was killed.
Nov. 8, 1775 - General George Washington sought to resolve
several problems facing the army: how to encourage experienced troops to
enlist, how to assemble a capable officer corps and how to overcome provincial
differences and rivalries. Describing the problems, he wrote, “Connecticut wants
no Massachusetts man in her corps. Massachusetts thinks there is no necessity
for a Rhode Islander…”
Nov. 8, 1793 - The Louvre Museum in Paris opened to the
public for the first time.
Nov. 8, 1805 - The "Corps of Discovery" reached
the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was lead by William Clark and Meriwether
Lewis. The journey had begun on May 14, 1804 with the goal of exploring the
Louisiana Purchase territory.
Nov. 8, 1824 – During his tour of the United States, the
Marquis de Lafayette attended a public banquet at the University of Virginia in
nearby Charlottesville, Va.
Nov. 8, 1827 – While serving in the U.S. Army, Edgar Allan
Poe traveled by ship on the brig Waltham to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, S.C.
where his regiment had been posted.
Nov. 8, 1837 – Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary in South Hadley, Mass., which later becomes Mount Holyoke College. At
the time, there were 120 men’s colleges in America, but only a couple of
institutions for women that included higher education, and none chartered with
an expectation that they would be equivalent to men’s colleges, established as
permanent institutions that would outlive their founders. When Mount Holyoke
opened on this day, 80 students arrived, some of them having traveled for days to
get there, and they each brought a dictionary, an atlas, a Bible, and two
spoons.
Nov. 8, 1847 - Bram Stoker, author of the 1897 horror novel
“Dracula,” was born in Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland.
Nov. 8, 1861 – In what is known as the “Trent Affair,” two Confederate
officials, diplomatic envoys James Mason and John Slidell, sailing on the
British mail ship “Trent” toward England were seized by the U.S. Navy’s USS San
Jacinto. England demanded their release and threatened war. U.S. President
Abraham Lincoln eventually conceded and ordered the officials released on Dec.
26. Lincoln commented "One war at a time."
Nov. 8, 1861 – During the Civil War, the Battle at Ivy
Mountain was fought in Kentucky. The Confederates had about 1,000 men, but were
chased by a substantially larger Union force, elements of a dozen units. U.S.
losses were about 30, against roughly 250 Confederate casualties.
Nov. 8, 1862 – Joseph Tarpley Peacock, who was the father of
Lewis Lavon Peacock, signed an affidavit in support of the heirs of Richard
Salter, who had died in prison on April 27 after being captured while serving
with the 40th Tennessee. One of Richard Salter’s heirs was Simon Salter, one of
Joseph’s neighbors.
Nov. 8, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Rappahannock Station, Hazel River and Little Washington, Virginia; at Cove Creek and Marianna, Arkansas; at Burkesville, Kentucky; at Old Lamar and Hudsonville, Mississippi; at Gallatin and on the Cumberland River, Tennessee; and at Cato, Kansas.
Nov. 8, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Brandy Station, Muddy Run, Rixeyville, Stevensburg, Warrenton and near Jeffersonton, Virginia; at Second Creek, West Virginia; and at Vermillionville and Tunica Bend, Louisiana.
Nov. 8, 1864 - Northern voters overwhelmingly endorsed the
leadership and policies of President Abraham Lincoln when they elected him to a
second term on this day. With his re-election, any hope for a negotiated
settlement with the Confederacy vanished and five months after Lincoln’s
re-election, the collapse of the Confederacy was complete. On election day,
Lincoln carried all but three states (Kentucky, New Jersey, and Delaware), and
won 55 percent of the vote.
Nov. 8, 1864 - Upon hearing of President Abraham Lincoln
being re-elected General William T. Sherman ordered 2,500 light wagons to be
loaded with supplies in preparation for his “March to the Sea.”
Nov. 8, 1880 - French actress Sarah Bernhardt made her
American stage debut in "Adrienne Lecouvreur" in New York City. She would
later perform in Pensacola, Fla.
Nov. 8, 1887 - Doc Holliday died at the age of 35. The
gunfighting dentist died from tuberculosis in a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs,
Colo.
Nov. 8, 1889 – Willie Stevens, the son of T.J. Stevens, was
shot and killed by his uncle, Theo. W. Marshall near Finchburg, Ala. around 8
a.m.
Nov. 8, 1889 – Montana was admitted as the 41st U.S. state.
Nov. 8, 1895 – X-rays were discovered by physicist Wilhelm
Rontgen, who received the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901.
Nov. 8, 1896 – National Baseball Hall of Fame second baseman
and manager Bucky Harris was born in Port Jervis, N.Y. He went on to play for
the Washington Senators and the Detroit Tigers and also managed the Senators,
Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees. He was
inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975.
Nov. 8, 1897 – Social activist and journalist Dorothy Day
was born.
Nov. 8, 1900 - Margaret Mitchell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning
author of the 1936 Civil War novel “Gone With the Wind,” was born in Atlanta,
Ga.
Nov. 8, 1904 - Alabama author and Poet Laureate Bert
Henderson was born in Glenwood, Ala.
Nov. 8, 1908 – Novelist Raja Rao was born in Hassan, India.
Nov. 8, 1913 – The Rev. Timothy Horton Ball passed away at
the age of 87 and was buried in the Creighton Family Cemetery at Whatley in
Clarke County, Ala. A native of Hampden County, Mass., he was a minister,
teacher, historian and author and spent most of his life in Clarke County, Ala.
In 1882, while living in Grove Hill, he would publish “A Glance into the Great
South-east; or, Clarke County, Alabama, and its Surroundings, from 1540 to
1877.”
Nov. 8, 1915 – Only 3,800 bales of cotton had been ginned in
Conecuh County, Ala. from the 1915 crop prior to this date as compared with
12,559 bales up to that same date in 1914, a shortfall of 8,759 bales.
Nov. 8, 1915 - Capt. Charles L. Johnson died at his home at
Franklin, Ala. “at an advanced age after an illness of several months.” Johnson
had been a steamboat captain for many years and was widely known.
Nov. 8, 1915 – According to the census bureau, due to the
invasion of the boll weevil, only 7,176 bales of cotton had been ginned in
Monroe County, Ala. up to this date from the 1915 crop, compared to 17,932
bales up to that date in 1914. In Wilcox County, only 7,258 had been ginned
compared with 21,771 bales in 1914.
Nov. 8, 1918 – Construction of Wilson Dam in Florence, Ala.
began just three days before the armistice ending World War I was signed.
Nov. 8, 1920 – Mitchell Burford Salter died. Born on May 20,
1839, he enlisted as a private in Co. E, 4th Alabama Infantry, Arm was
amputated at Chickamaga, and the bone from his arm is on display in the
National Museum of Health and Medicine. He was buried in Old Evergreen
Cemetery.
Nov. 8, 1922 – The Montgomery Air Intermediate Depot was
renamed Maxwell Field in honor of Lt. William C. Maxwell of Natchez, Ala. who
was killed in a plane crash in the Philippines in 1920.
Nov. 8, 1923 – In what is now known as the “Beer Hall
Putsch,” in Munich, Adolf Hitler led the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to
overthrow the German government.
Nov. 8, 1929 – College Football Hall of Fame head coach
Bobby Bowden was born in Birmingham, Ala. He went on to play for Alabama
(freshman team) and Samford and served as head coach at West Virginia and
Florida State.
Nov. 8, 1933 – During the Great Depression, as part of the
New Deal program, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the Civil Works
Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million
unemployed.
Nov. 8, 1937
– The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew")
opened in Munich.
Nov. 8, 1939 – In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped the
assassination attempt of Georg Elser while celebrating the 16th anniversary of
the Beer Hall Putsch.
Nov. 8, 1941 – Lt. Laula M. Middleton, son of Mrs. Evelyn
Middleton of Fairview began pilot training at Foster Field, Texas. He received
his “war wings” on May 20, 1942 and was transferred to Orlando, Fla. for
advanced training. Middleton Field was named in his honor.
Nov. 8, 1942 - Parker Hall of the
Cleveland Rams threw seven interceptions against the Green Bay Packers.
Nov. 8, 1943 - Alabama author Jon
L. Breen was born in Montgomery, Ala.
Nov. 8, 1944 – Guy Dawson Booker of Conecuh County, Ala. was
killed aboard U.S. Submarine Growler, which was sank by the Japanese and never
found.
Nov. 8, 1951 - Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees won his
first MVP award. He went on to win two more in his career, in 1954 and 1955.
Nov. 8, 1954 – Major League Baseball’s American League
approved the transfer of the Philadelphia Athletics to Kansas City, Mo.
Nov. 8, 1954 – Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Japan and
moved to England in 1960 at the age of five.
Nov. 8, 1956 – The Evergreen Courant reported that A. Bufred
Johnson, a longtime Evergreen Courant employee, had accepted a position with
the Pensacola News-Journal. He’d worked at The Courant since Dec. 1, 1942.
Nov. 8, 1957 – B.L. Hendrix, who served as Monroeville’s
mayor between 1936 to 1944, passed away. He also served terms as city clerk and
police chief.
Nov. 8, 1958 - As Charles Wetzel was driving along the Santa
Ana River, he had a sighting of a strange bipedal reptilian creature with
scales. Making gurgling and screeching sounds, it clawed at the windshield as
Wetzel accelerated over it. Police tests indicated the car had run over
something and there were definite claw marks on the windshield.
Nov. 8, 1960
– John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential
elections of the 20th century to become the 35th president of the United
States.
Nov. 8, 1964 – E.H. Williams, the father of country music
legend Hank Williams, was to be present at the matinee showing of “Your
Cheatin’ Heart” at the Monroe Theatre in Monroeville, Ala.
Nov. 8, 1964 - James Shelton Dunn, age 61, prominent
Evergreen businessman who was widely known, died unexpectedly at his home on
Bruner Avenue in Evergreen, Ala. on this Sunday afternoon. He was a pharmacist
and had owned and operated the Conecuh Drug Company for many years. He also had
other business interests and was a director of The Conecuh County Bank.
Nov. 8, 1965
– The 173rd Airborne was ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump
during the Vietnam War, while the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment fought
one of the first set-piece engagements of the war between Australian forces and
the Viet Cong at the Battle of Gang Toi.
Nov. 8, 1965 - For action this day in the Iron Triangle northwest of Saigon, Specialist Five Lawrence Joel, a medic with the 1st Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade earned the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living African American since the Spanish-American War to receive the nation’s highest award for valor. When his unit was outnumbered in an attack by an enemy force, Specialist Joel, who suffered a severe leg wound in the early stages of the battle, continued to administer aid to his wounded comrades. Wounded a second time—with a bullet lodged deep in his lungs—Joel continued to treat the wounded, completely disregarding the battle raging around him and his own safety. Even after the 24-hour battle had subsided, Joel, a 38-year-old father of two, continued to treat and comfort the wounded until his own evacuation was ordered. President Johnson presented the Medal of Honor to Specialist Joel on March 9, 1967, in ceremonies held on the South Lawn of the White House.
Nov. 8, 1965 - Edward W. Brooke (R-Massachusetts) became the first African American elected to Senate. In California, former movie actor Ronald Reagan was elected governor.
Nov. 8, 1966 – Army Spc. James Mathew Kelly of Atmore, Ala.
was killed in action in Vietnam.
Nov. 8, 1966 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into
law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with
the upstart American Football League.
Nov. 8, 1966 – In the race for Alabama governor, Lurleen
Wallace overwhelmed Jim Martin in the general election.
Nov. 8, 1970 - Tom Dempsey of the New Orleans Saints set an
NFL record when he kicked a 63-yard field goal against the Detroit Lions. The
record stood until Oct. 25, 1998 when Jason Elam of the Denver Broncos tied the
record.
Nov. 8, 1970 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Sue
Weaver, Worthy Matron of Conecuh Chapter No. 217, Order of the Eastern Star,
recently presented Geneva Salter, Vivian Deer, Daisy Shell and Lofton Shell
with lifetime membership cards. Members with 25 consecutive years membership
and who were 65 years of age or older were eligible for this honor.
Nov. 8, 1974 – Excel High School, under head coach Lee
Holladay, won their 33rd consecutive win on this Friday night by beating
McKenzie, 26-0, completing their third straight undefeated season. Excel ended
the season tied with Lyeffion for the Area 2 championship, but didn’t qualify
for the postseason due to a tie-breaker rule. Standout Excel players that
season included Rhett Barnes, Butch Grissette, Al Hall, Johnny House, James
Jordan, Rex McCants, Keith McMillian, Mike McQueen and Darrell Wiggins.
Nov. 8, 1977 – Manolis Andronikos, a Greek archaeologist and
professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, discovered the tomb of
Philip II of Macedon at Vergina.
Nov. 8, 1977 – National Baseball Hall of Fame second baseman
and manager Bucky Harris passed away at the age of 81 in Bethesda, Md. During
his career, he played for the Washington Senators and the Detroit Tigers and
also managed the Senators, Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies and
New York Yankees. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975.
Nov. 8, 1979 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Willie
Rogers’ Famous Barbecue was now open on Fridays and Saturdays from 10:30 a.m.
to 6 p.m. This restaurant, which was located on Willie Rogers Road in
Evergreen, Ala., was operated by Mrs. Rachel Rogers, using the sauce and
cooking technique made famous by the late Willie Rogers.
Nov. 8, 1981 - Don Shula, coach of the Miami Dolphins,
recorded his 200th NFL victory.
Nov. 8, 1986 – The Conecuh Heritage
Festival was scheduled to be held in downtown Evergreen, Ala.
Nov. 8, 1988 – An election was held
in Conecuh County, Ala. for Probate Judge, Superintendent of Education and
Conecuh County Commission. Democratic nominee Rogene Booker was opposed for
Judge of Probate by Republican nominee David F. Jackson. Steve Coker,
Democratic nominee for re-election as Superintendent of Education, was opposed
by Republican nominee David M. Johnson, principal of Repton High School. In the
commission race, Republican Donnis Barnes faced Democrat Hugh Barrow in
District 1. Democrat Jerold Dean sought re-election in District 2 and was
opposed by Republican nominee Thomas L. Robinson. In District 3, the incumbent
Percy Salter, Democrat, faced Republican nominee C.F. (Frank) Pate. J. Frank
Pierce was the Republican nominee in District 5 and faced Leonard (Punch)
Millender, Democrat. Incumbent Freddie L. Stallworth, Democrat, was unopposed
in District 4.
Nov. 8, 1990 - Darryl Strawberry signed a five-year contract
with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He went to the New York Mets after eight years and
gaining 252 home runs.
Nov. 8, 1990 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered more
troop deployments in the Persian Gulf, adding about 150,000 soldiers to the
multi-national force fighting against Iraq.
Nov. 8, 1994 – Conecuh County, Ala. voters elected their
first new sheriff in over 20 years when they elected former State Trooper
Thomas W. Hall, who received 2,943 votes while Republican Donnis Barnes
received 412 votes. Incumbent Sheriff Edwin L. Booker received 1,334 write-in
votes.
Nov. 8, 1994 - Judge Sue Bell Cobb, a native of Conecuh
County, Ala., was elected to the State Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 2,
defeating Greg Griffin in the statewide election. It had been many years since
a Conecuh County native has been elected to a statewide office.
Nov. 8, 1997 - Nevada's John Dutton threw for 557 yards and
five touchdowns in a victory over Boise State.
Nov. 8, 1998 - Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys became the
all-time rushing leader for the Cowboys. He also passed 12,000 career yards in
the NFL.
Nov. 8, 2000 - Waco special counsel John C. Danforth
released his final report that absolved the government of wrongdoing in the
1993 seige of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas.
Nov. 8, 2001 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Freddie
Stallworth had officially retired after more than 25 years “on and off” in law
enforcement.
Nov. 8, 2002 – During the Iraq disarmament crisis, the
United Nations Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 1441 on Iraq,
forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences."
Nov. 8, 2004 – During the War in Iraq, more than 10,000 U.S.
troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participated in a siege on the
insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
Nov. 8, 2005 – In connection with the disappearance of
18-year-old Natalee Holloway of Mountain Brook, Alabama Governor Bob Riley,
joined by the Twitty family, urged Alabamians and others to boycott Aruba in a
news conference on this day.
Nov. 8, 2011 – The potentially hazardous asteroid 2005 YU55
passed 0.85 lunar distances from Earth (about 201,700 miles), the closest known
approach by an asteroid of its brightness since 2010 XC15
in 1976.
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