2nd Lt. Dale Grimes |
Dec. 24, 1524 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama died from
malaria in Kochi, Portuguese India, somewhere between 55 and 65 years old.
Dec. 24, 1745 – Revolutionary War Patriot, physician and
social reformer Benjamin Rush was born in Byberry Township, Pa.
Dec. 24, 1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island,
was discovered by James Cook.
Dec. 24, 1814 – Following the American victory on Lake
Champlain which led to the conclusion of the U.S.-British peace negotiations in
Belgium, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, formally ending the War of 1812.
Dec. 24, 1824 – During his tour of the United States, the
Marquis de Layayette arrived at the "Jug Bridge" crossing the
Monocacy River on the National Pike east of Frederick, Md.
Dec. 24-25, 1826 - The Eggnog Riot, sometimes known as the
Grog Mutiny, took place at the United States Military Academy in West Point,
New York. The incident involved two Alabama cadets, William R. Burnley and
Samuel Alexander Roberts, as well as future Confederate president Jefferson
Davis.
Dec. 24, 1828 - William Burke who, with his partner William
Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on
trial in Edinburgh.
Dec. 24, 1851 - A fire devastated the Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.
Dec. 24, 1861 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought at Wadesburg, Mo.
Dec. 24, 1861 – The first of two days of Federal operations near Fairfax Courthouse, Va. began.
Dec. 24, 1862 – During the Civil War, a Federal operation began between Helena, Ark. and the Tallahatchie River, in Mississippi. Skirmishes were also fought at Glasgow and Green‘s Chapel, Ky.; and at Bolivar, Middleburg, near Nashville, and at Perkin’s Mill, Tenn.
Dec. 24, 1863 - At the height of the Civil War, the Battle
of Dandridge occurred at Dandridge, Tenn. as Confederate General James
Longstreet and Union General Ambrose Burnside struggled for control of
Knoxville. The 59th Alabama Infantry Regiment was there as well, and I believe
it’s possible that Lewis Lavon Peacock was there too.
Dec. 24, 1863 – Capt. David William
Kelly of Co. F of the 36th Alabama Infantry Regiment died from wounds he
received on Nov. 25, 1863 at Rossville Gap on the left at Missionary Ridge,
Tenn. After getting wounded, he was sent to a Union hospital and was then
transferred to the U.S. Army of Cumberland Hospital at Chattanooga. He was
buried in a trench grave at Confederate Cemetery in Chattanooga.
Dec. 24, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Rodney, Miss.; at Estenaula, near Dandridge, at Jack’s Creek, new Market and Mossy Creek Station, Tenn.; and near Germantown and in Lee County, Va. A six-day Federal operation also began out from Cassville, Mo. to determine the movement of Confederate Col. Stand Watie.
Dec. 24, 1864 - A Union fleet of 66 ships, under Admiral
David Dixon Porter, began a bombardment of Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
Although an impressive display of firepower, the attack failed to destroy the
fort, and a ground attack the next day did not succeed either.
Dec. 24, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought near Fort Smith, Richland and Pine Bluff, Ark.; at Lynnville and Richland Creek, Tenn.; and at Taylorstown, Va.
Dec. 24, 1865 – In Pulaski, Tenn., a group of Confederate
veterans convened to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux
Klan.” The KKK rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary
force bent on reversing the federal government’s progressive Reconstruction
Era-activities in the South. Former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest
was the KKK’s first grand wizard, but in 1869, he unsuccessfully tried to
disband it after he grew critical of the Klan’s excessive violence.
Dec. 24, 1893 – Outlaw Charles Kelley was arrested in Monroe
County, five miles south of Pine Apple, hiding in a cotton house owned by H.L.
Solomon. Solomon and some of his neighbors captured him and took him to
Greenville the next day, which was Christmas. On Dec. 17, he and accomplice
John Hipp robbed and murdered Butler County Tax Collector C.J. Armstrong. On
Dec. 28, Hipp and Kelley were taken by a mob of 100 armed, masked men and
lynched on the courthouse columns.
Dec. 24, 1895 – The Rev. J.W. Killough, the new pastor of
the Monroeville Circuit M.E. Church, arrived in Monroeville “with his
interesting family” on this Tuesday, and began living at the parsonage.
Dec. 24, 1903 – Polish-Russian geographer and explorer Ernst
Krenkel was born in Białystok, now Poland, to a German family.
Dec. 24, 1905 – Tycoon, aviation pioneer and film producer
Howard Hughes was born in Houston, Texas.
Dec. 24, 1906 – Canadian electrician and chemist Reginald A.
Fessenden transmited the first radio broadcast, which consisted of a poetry
reading, a violin solo and a speech.
Dec. 24, 1914 – Monroe Journal editor Q. Salter announced
that “following our usual custom” there would be no Dec. 31 edition, so that
his employees could have the holidays off from work.
Dec. 24, 1914 – The Evergreen Courant reported that 18
prisoners in the Conecuh County Jail almost escaped “one night last week.” Some
of them used iron bar supports from their cots to remove enough bricks around a
window a big enough for them to escape from their cell. They also torn their
blankets into “strings” that they’d tied together to help them reach the
ground. Sheriff Hines discovered their plot in time to prevent their escape.
Dec. 24, 1914 – The last known Christmas truce occurred, during
World War I. German troops fighting in Belgium began decorating their trenches
and singing Christmas carols. Their enemy, the British, soon joined in the
caroling. The war was put on hold, and these soldiers greeted each other in “No
Man’s Land,” exchanging gifts of whiskey and cigars.
Dec. 24, 1921 – Pro Footall Hall of Fame halfback Bill
Dudley was born in Bluefield, Va. He went on to play for Virginia, the
Pittsburgh Steelers, the Detroit Lions and the Washington Redskins. He was
inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966.
Dec. 24, 1930 - W.G. Rabun, a pioneer citizen of Conecuh
County, died at the age of 73 at his home in Brooklyn, Ala. on this Tuesday. He
was buried the following day in his family burial grounds in the Brooklyn Cemetery
with the Rev. C.O. Stewart officiating.
Dec. 24, 1939 – Former Monroeville Pressing Shop manager
L.D. Moore died suddenly early on this morning at the home of his sister, Mrs.
Rex Russell. He was buried in the Baptist Cemetery in Monroeville, Ala.
Dec. 24, 1940 – On this Christmas Eve, Jean-Paul Sartre’s
first play was performed, in a German POW camp where he himself was a prisoner.
The play was called Bariona, or the Son of Thunder, and it was
Sartre’s take on the Nativity story.
Dec. 24, 1942 – The survivors of the Little Eva crash,
including Grady Gaston of Frisco City, Ala., found a shack. Also on that day,
survivor 2nd Lt. Dale Grimes, the bombardier, drowned in the Robinson River
when the current took him out to sea and he was too weak to swim back. His body
was later recovered.
Dec. 24, 1944 – The Evergreen Hotel, built around 1895,
burned to the ground on this Christmas Eve night. This hotel was built after
Evergreen suffered its second great fire around 1893 to 1894. The Evergreen
Hotel of that era was on the same site as the one that burned in 1944.
Dec. 24, 1946 – U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, who also served
as the 44th Attorney General of Alabama, was born in Selma, Ala.
Dec. 24, 1947 – The 20-room Geneva High School was dynamited
around 10 p.m., resulting in all the windows in the building being shattered
and “considerable repairs” being necessary before the school could be reopened.
Sheriff W.P. Register believed that a “bunch of boys” set off the blast as part
of a “prank.”
Dec. 24, 1955 – NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in
what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.
Dec. 24, 1964
– During the Vietnam War, Viet Cong operatives bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon,
South Vietnam to demonstrate they could strike an American installation in the
heavily guarded capital.
Dec. 24, 1966
– A Canadair CL-44 chartered by the United States military crashed into a small
village in South Vietnam, killing 129.
Dec. 24, 1967 – Army Spc. Travis Robert Sutton of Andalusia,
Ala. was killed in action in Vietnam.
Dec. 24, 1967 – In an incident attributed to the Bermuda
Triangle, the owner and a passenger on the cabin cruiser “Witchcraft”
disappeared while the craft was at a harbor buoy one mile from Miami, Fla.
Dec. 24, 1967 - Joe Namath of the New York Jets became the
first NFL quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards.
Dec. 24, 1968 – In the first manned space mission to the
moon, the Apollo 8 spacecraft entered orbit around the moon. Frank Borman, Jim
Lovell, and William Anders became the first humans to orbit a celestial body
other than our Earth. Apollo 8 circled the moon 10 times over the next 20
hours, while the astronauts tested equipment and took many photographs of the
moon’s surface.
Dec. 24, 1969 - Center fielder Curt Flood of the St. Louis
Cardinals wrote a letter to Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner of major league
baseball, protesting the Cardinals' decision to trade him to the Philadelphia
Phillies and asking to be made a free agent.
Dec. 24, 1972 - Comedian Bob Hope gave what he said was his last Christmas show to U.S. servicemen in Saigon.
Dec. 24, 1972 - President Nixon suspended Operation Linebacker II for 36 hours to mark the Christmas holiday.
Dec. 24, 1973 – On this day before Christmas, cars lined up
at the few gas stations that were open in the Monroeville, Ala. area. According
to The Monroe Journal, “it was the last chance for many motorists to fill up
before a Christmas Day that saw all but a handful of stations around the nation
close down, largely because of the energy crisis.”
Dec. 24, 1975 – In connection with the “Amityville Horror”
case, Father Ralph J. Pecoraro called George Lutz and advised him to stay out
of the second floor room where he had heard a mysterious voice telling him to
“get out.”
Dec. 24, 1978 – Weather observer Earl Windham reported 1.43
inches of rain in Evergreen, Ala.
Dec. 24, 1980 – Witnesses reported the first of several
sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge, in Rendlesham Forest,
Suffolk, England, United Kingdom, an incident called "Britain's
Roswell."
Dec. 24, 1981 - Reggie Jackson announced that he would join
Gene Autry’s California Angels for the 1982 season.
Dec. 24, 1985 - Richard Parker Ivey, the son of Mr. and Mrs.
Johnny Ivey of Scottsboro and the grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Wilburn Nall of
Lenox, killed a 38-pound bobcat on this Christmas Eve at the Nall’s farm near
Lenox, Ala.
Dec. 24, 1991 - Alabama author Virginia Sorensen died in
Florida.
Dec. 24, 1997 – In “V for Vendetta,” Finch related to Susan
V’s transformation and escaped from Larkhill.
Dec. 24, 2000 – Thirty-six minutes after the end of a game,
both the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins were called back to the
playing field. The teams had to play the final three seconds of the game, which
the Dolphins had won, 27-24. The end result did not change.
Dec. 24, 2015 – A UFO was reported around 5:13 p.m. on this
Thursday in Huntsville. The witness in this case and his wife were driving home
from dinner on Christmas Eve, and passed by the Space and Rocket Museum in
Huntsville. The man’s wife used her iPhone to snap a few pictures of the Saturn
5 rocket on display outside the museum, and when she viewed the pictures later
she noticed something unusual. A mysterious object in the sky showed up in five
different photos she took. In some photos, the object looks spherical, in
others it looks cylindrical and in others it appears to possibly have wings. In
at least one of the photos, the object appears to feature two white lights. In
all five of the photos, the object is blurry and hard to see clearly.
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