Gregory Peck with Sophia Loren in 1963. |
April 8, 6 BC - Gautama Buddha was born Prince Siddhartha in
India, in the sixth century B.C.E., and his parents were told by mystics that
he would grow up to be either a great political leader or a supremely
enlightened teacher.
April 8, 876 A.D. – The Battle of Dayr al-'Aqul saved
Baghdad from the Saffarids.
April 8, 1513 - Explorer Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida
for Spain.
April 8, 1732 – Astronomer, mathematician and surveyor David
Rittenhouse was born near Germantown, Pa. During the Revolutionary War,
Rittenhouse worked as a weapons engineer, improving designs for cannons and
rifles. George Washington named him first director of the United States Mint in
1792. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson held Rittenhouse in high regard,
and Philadelphia’s Southwest Square was renamed “Rittenhouse Square” in his
honor in 1825.
April 8, 1778 - John Adams arrived in Paris to replace Silas
Deane as a member of the American commission representing United States
interests.
April 8, 1789 - The U.S. House of Representatives held its
first meeting.
April 8, 1798 – Greek poet Dionysios Solomos was born on the
island of Zakynthos.
April 8, 1818 – General Andrew Jackson ordered his men to
hang Francis the Prophet and Micco Homollimico, Creek Indians who had been
captured a few days earlier.
April 8, 1825 – During his tour of the United States, the
Marquis de Lafayette was accompanied by Alabama Governor Pickens by steamboat
down Mobile Bay to Mobile Point, where he joined an official welcoming party
from Louisiana. He boarded the original steamer Natchez (built in 1823) which
took him to New Orleans to continue his tour of America.
April 8, 1842 - Elizabeth Bacon Custer, a significant chronicler of the West and the wife of George Custer, was born in Monroe, Michigan.
April 8, 1861 – During the Civil War, federal reinforcements
for Fort Pickens, Fla. sailed from New York Harbor, N.Y.
April 8, 1862 – During the Civil
War, skirmishes were fought near Arcata, Calif.; out from Corinth, Miss.; at
Albuquerque in the New Mexico Territory; and at Medicine Creek, Warrensburg,
and Warsaw, Mo. A Federal operation also began that passed through Gadfly,
Newtonia, Granby, and Indian Creek Valley, Mo.
April 8, 1862 – During the Civil
War, martial law was declared in eastern Tennessee, and the Confederate
garrison from Island Number 10 was surrendered at Tiptonville, Tenn. Federals
also pursued retreating Confederates from the Shiloh, Tenn. battlefield.
April 8, 1863 – During the Civil
War, skirmishes were fought in Saint Francis County, Ark.; near New Carthage,
La. at the James Plantation; and near Winchester, Va.
April 8, 1864 – During the Civil
War, skirmishes were fought on James Island in Charleston Harbor, S.C.; at
Winchester, Va.; at Bayou De. Paul, La.
April 8, 1864 - The U.S. Senate passed the 13th Amendment
(S.J. Res. 16) by a vote of 38 to 6.
April 8, 1864 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought
near Paint Rock Bridge, Ala.
April 8, 1864 – During the Civil War’s Union Red River
Campaign, at the Battle of Mansfield (also called the Battle of Sabine
Crossroad), Union forces were thwarted by the Confederate army at Mansfield,
Louisiana. During the battle, Confederate General Richard Taylor attacked and
routed troops under Union General Nathaniel Banks. The Union troops held off
attacks the next day. Banks suffered 113 men killed, 581 wounded, and 1,541
missing, while Taylor had about 1,500 total casualties.
April 8, 1865 – Union Gen. E.R.S. Canby secured Spanish Fort
and immediately began to shift his men northward for three miles to join Union
Major General Frederick Steele at Fort Blakeley.
April 8, 1865 - U.S. President Lincoln headed back to
Washington, D.C. He had been in Richmond since April 4. While there, Lincoln
had visited the Confederate White House and the chambers of the Confederate
Congress.
April 8, 1865 – During the Civil
War, skirmishes were fought at Martinsville, N.C.; and at Appomattox Station,
Va. Federal reconnaissance was also conducted from Fairfax Courthouse into
Loudoun County, Va. A three-day Federal reconnaissance began from Fairfax
Courthouse into Loudoun County, Va.
April 8, 1865 - Robert E. Lee’s
Army of Northern Virginia was endeavoring to get to its next goal, Lynchburg,
Va. This required them to pass the area of Appomattox. Close behind them were
the Army of the Potomac, under Meade, with commanding General Grant in
accompaniment. In front of them was a large force of Union cavalry under Phil
Sheridan, who were already in possession of the railroad to Lynchburg and was
capturing every supply train. Lee responded to Grant’s letter today, declining
to surrender but offering a truce.
April 8, 1865 – 59TH ALABAMA: Gordon’s corps
(including the 59th) stopped around midnight and many fell asleep on
the wet ground. The brigades moved out at 4 a.m. and marched until 3 p.m.,
sleeping where they fell once again. They were one mile from Appomattox
Courthouse. Brig. Gen. James A. Walker, the corps commander, ordered Gen.
Johnson’s men to move out to Appomattox Courthouse under the command of Brig.
Gen. Wallace around 8 p.m. They remained there in the line of battle all night,
under fire from the Yankee cavalry, who charged them many times.
April 8, 1869 – Pulitzer
Prize-winning scientist Harvey Cushing, known as the “father of neurosurgery,”
was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
April 8, 1896 – Song writer Edgar
Yip Harburg, who is best known for writing the lyrics and much of the script
for 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz,” was born in New York City.
April 8, 1902
– English mountaineer and explorer Andrew Irvine was born in Birkenhead,
Cheshire, England.
April 8, 1904 – British mystic and occultist Aleister
Crowley transcribed the first chapter of “The Book of the Law,” which he said
was authored by a being called Aiwass.
April 8, 1904 - With war in Europe a decade away, Britain and France signed an agreement, later known as the Entente Cordiale, resolving long-standing colonial disputes in North Africa and establishing a diplomatic understanding between the two countries.
April 8, 1905 - Mrs. Levi Garner, 75, of Sepulga, died on this
Saturday night from the effects of a snake bite inflicted a week before. She
got up during the night and stepped on the reptile, a rattlesnake, on the floor
which bit her foot twice. She became speechless in a few seconds and suffered
great agony until death.
April 8, 1910 – Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman
George Musso was born in Collinsville, Ill. He went on to play for Millikin
University and the Chicago Bears. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in
1982.
April 8, 1911 - An explosion at Jefferson County, Alabama’s
Banner Mine killed 129 miners. Most of the miners were prisoners leased to
Pratt Consolidated Coal Company under the state’s notorious convict lease
system. While many southern states leased convicts, Alabama’s program lasted
the longest, from 1846 to1928. In 1883 at least 10 percent of state revenue was
derived from the convict lease program.
April 8, 1911 - Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
discovered superconductivity.
April 8, 1912 – The Town of Castleberry in Conecuh County,
Ala. was officially incorporated as a municipality.
April 8, 1912
– Austrian-German SS officer Alois Brunner was born in Nádkút, Vas,
Austria-Hungary (now Rohrbrunn, Burgenland, Austria).
April 8, 1912 – The plant of the Evergreen Manufacturing
Co., owned by W.K. Horton, was totally destroyed by fire in a blaze that began
a little before 8 p.m. in Evergreen, Ala.
April 8, 1913 – The 17th Amendment to the United States
Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, became law.
April 8, 1914 - State Superintendent of Education W.F.
Feagin spoke at an educational rally in Castleberry, Ala.
April 8, 1914 – Editor and publisher Robert Giroux was born
in New Jersey.
April 8, 1918 – William Jennings Bryan, famed orator,
congressman and three-time Democratic Presidential nominee, spoke at the Old
Monroe County Courthouse in Monroeville, Ala. in favor of national prohibition.
April 8, 1918 - William Jennings Bryan, 58, delivered a
speech on the National Prohibition Amendment at the High School in Camden, Ala.
Other speakers that day included Brooks Lawrence, and Bryan was introduced by
the Hon. J.M. Bonner. Despite bad weather leading up to the event, hundreds of
people attended the event, including “many of the most prominent citizens of
the county.”
April 8, 1918
– During World War I, actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin sold war
bonds on the streets of New York City's financial district.
April 8, 1920 – Dr. James Thomas Searcy passed away in
Tuscaloosa, Ala. at the age of 80 and was buried in Tuscaloosa’s Evergreen
Cemetery. He served as the first superintendent of the Mount Vernon Hospital,
which was renamed Searcy Hospital in his honor in 1919.
April 8, 1920 – The Monroe Journal reported that it appeared
a day late that week “in consequence of the necessity of printing the official
list of registered voters of the county, a copy of which was furnished us at
the eleventh hour.”
April 8, 1927 – Major League Baseball left fielder Charlie
‘Smokey’ Maxwell was born in Lawton, Mich. He went on to play for the Boston
Red Sox, the Baltimore Orioles, the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox.
April 8, 1927 - Horace Devaughn, a
black man convicted of double murder in Jefferson County, Ala., was executed at
Kilby Prison, marking Alabama's first use of the electric chair. Two weeks
later, Virgil Murphy, a veteran of World War I who was convicted in Houston
County, Ala. of murdering his wife, became the first white man electrocuted in
the chair. Before the state's use of the electric chair, executions generally
were carried out in the counties by hanging.
April 8, 1935 – The Works Progress
Administration was formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935
became law.
April 8, 1937 – Pulitzer Prize-winning
political writer Seymour Hersh was born in Chicago.
April 8, 1943 – Major League Baseball pitcher John Hiller
was born in Toronto, Ontario. He went on to play his entire career for the
Detroit Tigers.
April 8, 1943 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Conecuh
County Education Superintendent H.D. Weathers had announced that all schools of
the county would open at 8 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. in the mornings beginning
Monday morning, April 12. This change was being made since the days were
getting somewhat longer in order that pupils and teachers may get out an hour
earlier in the afternoons to help with farm and garden work.
April 8, 1943 – The Evergreen Courant reported that the Rev.
John D. McClanahan, 99, of Hartselle, Morgan County’s last Confederate veteran,
had died recently.
April 8, 1945
– During World War II, after an air raid accidentally destroyed a train
carrying about 4,000 Nazi concentration camp internees in Prussian Hanover, the
survivors were massacred by Nazis.
April 8, 1946 – National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Jim
"Catfish" Hunter was born in Hertford, N.C. He would go on to play
for the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees. He was inducted
into the Hall of Fame in 1987.
April 8, 1947 - Estimated at 7 billion square miles, the
largest sunspot group was observed on the sun's southern hemisphere.
April 8, 1954 – National Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Gary
Carter was born in Culver City, Calif. He would go on to play for the Montreal
Expos, the New York Mets, the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003.
April 8, 1955 – Novelist Barbara Kingsolver was born in
Annapolis, Maryland.
April 8, 1963 – Gregory Peck received an Academy Award for
Best Actor for his role as Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird” at the 35th
Academy Awards in Santa Monica, Calif.
April 8, 1965 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Sue
Griffin was the new Key Club Sweetheart for Division 7. She succeeded Sally
Oswald who had reigned as Sweetheart since the spring of 1964.
April 8, 1965 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Sammy
Simpson of Evergreen, Ala. had won first place in the spelling bee at Evergreen
High School. Shirley Cobb finished second and Johnny Crook finished third. Simpson
was to represent EHS in the state spelling bee in Birmingham that May,
sponsored by The Birmingham Post-Herald.
April 8, 1966 - Monroe County High’s Tigers opened defense
of their Pine Belt Conference baseball title with a 15-0 win over the Uriah
Bulldogs on this Friday behind the combined one-hit pitching of Tommy McMillon
and Terry Salter. The Tigers jumped off to a 6-0 lead with the six runs coming
in the first inning off Gary Lambert, who went five innings for the Bulldogs.
The only hit off the Tiger hurlers came in the top of the seventh inning when
Gary House lined a single to left field.
April 8, 1968 – U.S. Marine Luther Upton of Uriah, Ala. left
Vietnam, having survived the Seige of Khe Sahn.
April 8, 1972 - North Vietnamese
2nd Division troops drove out of Laos and Cambodia to open a third front of
their offensive in the Central Highlands, attacking at Kontum and Pleiku in
attempt to cut South Vietnam in two.
April 8, 1974 – At Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Mobile,
Ala. native Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run off
Cincinnati’s Jack Billingham to break Babe Ruth's longstanding record. Aaron
finished his career with 755 home runs.
April 8, 1974 – Cheryl Johnston began working at The
Evergreen Courant in Evergreen, Ala.
April 8, 1975 – Frank Robinson managed the Cleveland Indians
in his first game as Major League Baseball's first African American manager.
April 8, 1975 - After a weeklong
mission to South Vietnam, General Frederick Weyand, U.S. Army Chief of Staff and
former Vietnam commander, reported to Congress that South Vietnam could not
survive without additional military aid.
April 8, 1981 – Charles Kast of Conecuh County, Ala. killed
an 18-pound turkey with a 10-inch beard and 5/8-inch spurs.
April 8, 1983 - An old timers football game was scheduled to
be played at M.C. Thomasson Stadium at Conecuh County High School in
Castleberry on this Friday night. Kickoff was set for 7:30 p.m. A team from the
Repton area was to play a team from the Castleberry area.
April 8, 1986 – Will Clark made his Major League
Baseball debut, taking the field for the first time with the San Francisco
Giants. Clark debuted with a home run off future Hall of Fame member Nolan
Ryan.
April 8, 1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis
resigned amid controversy over racially charged remarks he had made while on
“Nightline.” While on ABC's "Nightline" Campanis said that blacks
"may not have some of the necessities" to hold managerial jobs in
Major League Baseball.
April 8, 1989 – Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Abbott,
who was born without a right hand, made his Major League debut, taking the
field for the first time with the California Angels.
April 8, 1990 - The first episode of "Twin Peaks"
aired on ABC-TV.
April 8, 1991 – The Oakland Athletic’s stadium became the
first outdoor arena to ban smoking.
April 8, 1991 - Excel High School’s baseball team pounded
Hillcrest High School 11-1 on this Monday in their home opener to remain
unbeaten. Monday’s victory coupled with a 15-0 win over Red Level High School,
a 12-0 decision against Frisco City High School, a 7-3 victory over Hillcrest
and a 7-2 win over J.U. Blacksher High School during the previous week left the
Panthers with a 6-0 overall record. Standout Excel players in those games
included Tracy Barlow, Mike Bishop, Bo Daniel, Steve Goodman, Michael Hanks,
Trey Harris, Raymond Jamison, Shannon Kelley, Drexel Lambert, Bryan Luker, Mack
Ross and Justin Sawyer. Bo Bishop was Excel’s head coach.
April 8, 1994 - Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was found dead at the
age of 27. He had committed suicide three days before.
April 8, 1994 - The RIAA announced that Pink Floyd's 1973
album "Dark Side of the Moon" had become the fourth biggest-selling
album in U.S. history. It had passed the 13 million mark in sales.
April 8, 1996 - Alabama author Rick Bragg was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his stories about contemporary America.
April 8, 1998 - The widow of Martin Luther King Jr.
presented new evidence in an appeal for new federal investigation of the
assassination of her husband.
April 8, 2004 – The Clerk of the House certified the actions
of the Alabama Legislature and House Resolution No. 100 was assigned Act. No.
2004-97, which declared Conecuh Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey as Alabama’s
Official State Spirit.
April 8, 2008 - The Mets lost their last home opener at Shea
Stadium to Philadelphia Phillies.
April 8, 2009 - Sparta Academy’s varsity softball team
whipped 1A, Region 2 rival, Jackson Academy, 12-9, in Evergreen. Players on
Sparta’s varsity softball team that year included Madelyn Black, BreAnna Pate,
Sarah Smith and Rachel Stacey. Mike Sims was head coach.
April 8, 2013
– The Islamic State of Iraq entered the Syrian Civil War and began by declaring
a merger with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and
ash-Sham.
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