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| Alabama Gov. David Bibb Graves |
June 8, 632 – Muhammad, Islamic prophet, died in Medina and
was succeeded by Abu Bakr who became the first caliph of the Rashidun
Caliphate.
June 8, 1692 – In connection with the Salem witchcraft
trials, Bridget Bishop was the first to be tried and convicted of witchcraft.
She was sentenced to death. Also on this day, 18-year-old Elizabeth Booth was
accused of witchcraft.
June 8, 1776 – During the American Revolutionary War, at the
Battle of Trois-Rivières, American attackers were driven back at
Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Canadian Governor Sir Guy Carleton defeated American
Patriot forces under John Sullivan, and the Patriots retreated toward Montreal.
June 8, 1787 – Hinchey W. Warren was born in Burke County,
Ga., and he moved to Conecuh County, Ala. around 1818, settling near his father
about a mile east of Sparta. He was the great-grandfather of 29th U.S.
President, Warren G. Harding.
June 8, 1789 – James Madison introduced 12 proposed
amendments to the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives.
By 1791, 10 of them were ratified by the state legislatures and became the Bill
of Rights. Another was eventually ratified in 1992 to become the 27th
Amendment.
June 8, 1818 – Newton, Ala. Methodist minister William
“Bill” Sketoe Sr. was born in Madrid, Spain. His lynching in Newton on Dec. 3,
1864 gave birth to one of Alabama's best-known ghost stories, the story of
“Sketoe’s Hole.”
June 8, 1845 - Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the
United States, passed away at the age of 78 from chronic tuberculosis, dropsy
and heart failure in Nashville, Tenn.
June 8, 1848 – The world’s first professor of agricultural
physics, Franklin Hiram King, was born on a farm near Whitewater, Wisconsin.
June 8, 1861 - In Tennessee, voters approved a referendum to
secede from the Union and joined the Confederacy.
June 8, 1861 – During the
Civil War, Governor John Letcher of Virginia officially transferred the armed
forces of his state to the Confederate States. This action put General Robert
E. Lee out of a job, as he had commanded the Virginia troops. He continued to
act as an adviser to President Jefferson Davis.
June 8, 1862 – During the Civil War, at the Battle of Cross
Keys, Confederate forces under General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson saved the
Army of Northern Virginia from a Union assault on the James Peninsula led by
General George B. McClellan. This battle was part of the Shenandoah Valley
campaign and was a prelude to the larger Battle of Port Republic on June 9.
June 8, 1862 – During the Civil
War, skirmishes were fought near Fair Oaks and Muddy Creek in Virginia and in
the vicinity of Charleston Harbor, S.C.
June 8, 1863 - Confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest learned
that Union General Samuel D. Sturgis was moving toward Tupelo, Miss. In
response, Forrest selected Brice's Crossroads for an attack on the Union
cavalry. The plan worked and Forrest was able to capture 1,600 troops, 16
cannons and 176 supply wagons.
June 8, 1863 – During the Civil
War, residents of Vicksburg, Miss. fled into caves as General Ulysses S.
Grant's army began shelling the town during the 21st day of the siege.
June 8, 1867 – Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born in
Richland Center, Wisc.
June 8, 1867 – Mark Twain boarded the side-wheel steamer
“The Quaker City” and set off on a five-month trip to Europe and the
Mediterranean. He published his experiences from the trip in a book called
“Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress,” the most popular travel book
of his time.
June 8, 1902 – B.P. Pearson, a “crazy man” from Mississippi
City, “terrorized” the people of Repton on this Friday morning. Around 8 a.m.,
he came out of a Repton hotel in a “demented condition” with two revolvers and
a Winchester rifle and “seemed to want to shoot any who was in sight.” He shot,
but missed, Jack Campbell and after about two hours, A.E. Peterman and marshal
J.E. Robinson persuaded Pearson to lay down his guns.
June 8, 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act
into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of
public land with historical or conservation value.
June 8, 1910 – John W. Campbell, the editor who ushered in
the Golden Age of Science Fiction, was born in Newark, N.J.
June 8, 1915 - U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings
Bryan resigned in a disagreement over U.S. handling of the sinking of the Lusitania.
June 8, 1916 – Biophysicist Francis Crick was born in
Northampton, England.
June 8, 1916 – The Conecuh Record reported that Winton
Deming, who was taking a four-year course in electrical engineering at Auburn,
was at home for vacation.
June 8, 1916 – The Monroe Journal reported that H.B. Dameron
of Lynchburg, Va. had been in Monroe County, Ala. for a week prospecting with a
view to the purchase of a large body of land suitable for the establishment of
a stock farm. Dameron inspected several properties and seemed “strongly
impressed with their adaptability to the purpose contemplated.”
June 8, 1917 – On this day, early in the fourth summer of World War I, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George called an emergency meeting of his War Cabinet in London to discuss plans for an upcoming British offensive against the Germans on the Western Front.
June 8, 1919 - Mr. and Mrs. A.C. Lee and Miss Kittie
Williams returned on this Sunday from Washington, where they’d spent several
days.
June 8, 1924
– English mountaineer and explorer Andrew Irvine died at the age of 22 on the North Face, Mount Everest, Nepal.
June 8, 1934 - Richard T. (Dick) Rives, prominent lawyer
of the firm of Hill, Hill, Whiting, Thomas & Rives of Montgomery, Ala., was
to address the voters of Conecuh County at the courthouse on this Friday night
at eight o’clock, speaking in the interest of the candidacy of Col. Bibb Graves
for Governor. C.B. Wilson was Conecuh County manager for Bibb Graves.
June 8, 1934 - Thirty-four members of Monroe County High
School’s graduating class were presented diplomas by Prof. J.A. York at the
close of the commencement exercises at the high school auditorium on this
Friday evening. Annie Maude Hayles delivered the class salutatory address, and
Carolyn Andress rendered a piano solo, “Valse Caprice” by Wachs. Armistead
Harper made the president’s address, and Bonnie Hendrick was valedictorian.
June 8, 1937 - The world's largest and smelliest flower, the
8-1/2-foot-tall 'corpse flower' (Titan arum) bloomed at the Botanic Garden in
New York. The flower's putrid odor is meant to attract pollinators such as
carrion beetles and flesh flies found on the plant's native island, Sumatra.
June 8, 1939 - The board of directors of the Southern Pine
Electric Membership Corporation, sponsor for the REA lines under construction at
that time in Conecuh, Monroe and Escambia counties in Alabama, announced a rate
schedule in this day’s edition of The Evergreen Courant for the approximately
600 subscribers on the several lines.
June 8, 1939 – Pro Football Hall of Fame cornerback Herb
Adderley was born in Philadelphia, Pa. He went on to play for Michigan State,
the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys. He was inducted into the Hall of
Fame in 1980.
June 8, 1943 - Olympian Willie
Davenport was born in Troy (Pike County, Ala). Davenport is one of only a few
athletes to have competed in both the winter and summer Olympic Games. He
garnered international recognition between 1964 and 1976 for his explosive
speed and exquisite form in the high hurdles. As a bobsledder in 1980, he became
one of the first African Americans to participate in the Winter Olympics. From
1968 to 1980, Davenport served on the United States Olympic Committee as a member of the Board of Directors and Executive
and upon retirement from competition in 1982 was inducted into the United
States Track and Field Hall of Fame. Davenport joined the Army National Guard,
where he rose to the rank of colonel, and as chief of the Office of Sports
Management, he coached the All-Army men's and women's track teams to an unprecedented
four undefeated seasons between 1993 and 1996.
June 8, 1947 – A baseball game between the Evergreen
Greenies and Frisco City was postponed due to rain.
June 8, 1947 – Mrs. Harry Monroe was hit in the eye by a
foul ball during a baseball game in Brooklyn, Ala. She was rushed to Hill Crest
Infirmary in Andalusia, where she received 16 stitches under her eye, and was
later carried to Jackson Hospital in Montgomery. The June 12 edition of The
Courant reported that she was improving from her injuries.
June 8, 1947 – Crime novelist Sara Paretsky was born in
Ames, Iowa.
June 8, 1949 – The celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker,
Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are
named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
June 8, 1949 – George Orwell's prescient classic “1984” was
published.
June 8, 1951
– German SS officer Oswald Pohl was executed by hanging at the age of 58 at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg am Lech.
June 8, 1952 - Miss Wilma Maurice Golson, daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Otis Benjamin Golson, married Robert Gaston Bozeman Jr. on this
Sunday. Golson was a popular member of the graduating class of the Evergreen
High School. Bozeman was the son of Robert Gaston Bozeman Sr. and the late Mrs.
Susan Dickey Bozeman. He was a veteran of World War II, serving overseas with
the 1st Marine Division.
June 8, 1954 - The Evergreen City Council voted to install
another street light on Williams Avenue, part of the new subdivision being
developed by J.R. Canterbury off Rural Street. City Clerk G.L. Wilkinson was also
authorized to begin rewriting the city license schedule and bringing it up to
date, including cross filing. Certain rate increases were expected to be in
order, too, but most rates were expected to remain the same.
June 8, 1961 - The Milwaukee Braves set a Major League Baseball
record when they hit four consecutive home runs in the seventh inning.
June 8, 1965 – A State Department
press officer noted that, “American forces would be available for combat support
together with Vietnamese forces when and if necessary,” alerting the press to
an apparently major change in the U.S. commitment to the war. Prior to this
time, U.S. forces had been restricted to protecting American airbases and other
installations.
June 8, 1966 - It was announced that the NFL and AFL had
merged and there would be a single schedule for both the NFL and AFL.
June 8, 1968 - James Earl Ray was captured at the London
Airport. He was suspected of assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
June 8, 1969 - The New York Yankees retired Mickey Mantle's
No. 7 jersey.
June 8, 1969 - President Nixon and
South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu met at Midway Island in the Pacific,
and Nixon announced that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of
August, emphasizing that South Vietnamese forces would replace U.S. forces
under what would be known as “Vietnamization.”
June 8, 1972
– During the Vietnam War, nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc was burned by napalm,
an event captured by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut moments later while
the young girl was seen running down a road, in what would become an iconic, Pulitzer
Prize-winning photo.
June 8, 1976
– Major League Baseball catcher Kenji Johjima was born in Sasebo, Japan. He
played for the Seattle Mariners from 2006 to 2009.
June 8, 1976
– Tennis player and coach Lindsay Davenport was born in Palos Verde, Calif.
June 8, 1978 – The TG&Y Family Center officially opened
in Evergreen, Ala.
June 8, 1982 – National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher
Satchel Page passed away at the age of 75 in Kansas City, Mo. A native of
Mobile, Ala., he played for the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Browns and the
Kansas City Athletics as well as a long list of Negro League teams. He was
inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971.
June 8, 1984 -
"Ghostbusters" was first released in theaters across the U.S.
June 8, 1997 – Betty Carrier was
honored for her 24 faithful years of service as director of the Child
Development Center at Evergreen Baptist Church, where the Rev. Phil Weaver was
the church’s pastor at the time.
June 8, 1999 - Retired long time City of Evergreen Assistant
Street Superintendent Sanford Moye was tragically killed when his Ford
Expedition was struck by a southbound train on this Tuesday morning at the
depot crossing in downtown Evergreen, Ala. The crossing near the depot had been
the scene of several collisions over the previous several years, but this
accident was the first one to involve a fatality in many years.
June 8, 2004 - Nate Olive and Sarah
Jones began the first known continuous hike of the 1,800-mile trail down the
U.S. Pacific Coast. They completed the trek at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sept.
28.
June 8, 2005 - Alex Rodriguez
became the youngest player to reach 400 career home runs in a 12-3 win over the
Milwaukee Brewers.
June 8, 2006 – City of Evergreen
and Conecuh County officials signed a joint partnership agreement with W&B
Trading Co., a biodiesel manufacturing facility to be constructed near
Castleberry. The $10 million facility was to employ 24 people and construction
was to begin within 30 to 45 days.
June 8, 2016 – A UFO was reported
to have been seen around 9 p.m. in Davenport, in Lowndes County, Ala. The
witness was fishing alone in a lake on family property when he saw a “bright,
round object” low on the western horizon. The object was “silver white” in
color, and the witness watched as it disappeared and reappeared three times in
the western sky in a matter of seconds. The next night, the witness and a
friend were fishing in the same area around 9 p.m. when the initial witness saw
a round object identical to the one he saw the night before. The object
appeared then disappeared “very fast” twice in a 20-minute span. Later, around
9:45 p.m., the light reappeared, and then another identical light appeared to
its right. A few seconds later, the first light disappeared, but reappeared a
split second later. However, when they reappeared, the lights were dark orange
in color and were rectangular in shape. Three more lights appeared, and then
the witness “could actually see a shape of a disc-shaped object.” The witnesses
continued to watch as two reddish-orange orbs sped off to the north, one moving
in a straight line as the other seemed to circle the other. The lights then
“spiraled each other” and disappeared. All of this took place in under two
minutes, the witness said. The witness returned to the same spot the following
night, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
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