Today in History for April 30, 2018

Kathryn Tucker Windham

April 30, 1006 - A new star, possibly the brightest supernova in recorded human history, appeared in the sky.

April 30, 1492 – Spain gave Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.

April 30, 1692 – In connection with the Salem witchcraft trials, several girls accused former Salem minister George Burroughs of witchcraft.

April 30, 1770 – English-Canadian cartographer and explorer David Thompson was born in Westminster, London, England.

April 30, 1776 - Samuel Adams wrote to the Rev. Samuel Cooper that he hoped for another battle between British and American troops, stating his belief that, "One battle would do more towards a Declaration of Independence than a long chain of conclusive arguments in a provincial convention or the Continental Congress."

April 30, 1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.

April 30, 1803 – In what is now known as the “Louisiana Purchase,” the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation. The territory covered 828,000 square miles, stretching from present-day Louisiana north to Canada, and as far west as the border of Idaho, doubling the geographical area of the United States.

April 30, 1812 – The Territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.

April 30, 1859 – Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” was first published in serial form, appearing in the first issue of a new weekly journal, “All the Year Round,” which Dickens founded himself.

April 30, 1861 – During the Civil War, Fort Washita, in the Indian Territory, was abandoned by Federal forces.

April 30, 1862 – Kolb’s Battery (also known as the Barbour Light Artillery and 4th Battalion, Co. C, Hilliard’s Legion) mustered into Confederate service and then proceeded to Montgomery, Ala. where it was divided in two. The unit was organized at Eufaula, Ala. in April 1862 with a complement of about 325 officers and men. With two other companies, it organized as the artillery battalion of Hilliard's Legion.

April 30, 1862 – Lewis Lavon Peacock enlisted at the age of 17 in Kolb’s Battery, which became part of Hilliard’s Legion and later the 59th Alabama. He served in the campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee, including Chickamauga, before the regiment was transferred to Virginia in the spring of 1864.

April 30, 1862 – During the Civil War, Confederate forces moved toward Staunton from Elk Run in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

April 30, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Cooked Creek and Hog Mountain in Alabama.

April 30, 1863 - The Battle of Day's Gap was fought between the cavalry forces of Union Col. Abel Streight and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The engagement was the first in a series of skirmishes between Streight and Forrest during Streight's Raid across north Alabama. The raid ended with Streight's surrender to Forrest just short of Streight's intended destination of Rome, Ga.

April 30, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought with Indians near Oak Camp, Calif.; at Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory; at Bloomfield, Va.; near Chancellorsville, Raccoon Ford and Spotsylvania Courthouse in Virginia; and at Bridgeport, West Virginia. Federal forces also began crossing the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Mississippi near Bruinsburg, Miss., south of Vicksburg, Miss.

April 30, 1864 - Work began on the dams along the Red River. The work would allow Union General Nathaniel Banks' troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, La.

April 30, 1864 - At the Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry in Arkansas, Union troops under General Frederick Steele fought off a Confederate army under General Edmund Kirby Smith as the Yankees retreated towards Little Rock, Arkansas. Jenkins’ Ferry came at the end of a major Union offensive in Arkansas, and Smith attacked Steele as the Yankees were trying to cross the flooded Saline River. The Union suffered 700 men killed, wounded, and missing out of 4,000, while the Confederates lost about 1,000 out of 8,000.

April 30, 1864 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought at Whitmore’s Mill, Ark., and a 10-day Federal operation between Memphis, Tenn. and Ripley, Miss. began.

April 30, 1864 – During the Civil War, CSA President Jefferson Davis’ son, Joseph, age five, fell to his death out of a second floor window of the Confederate White House in Richmond, Va. The exuberant five-year-old was, as boys that age often do, playing where he shouldn’t have been, on the second-floor balcony of the Presidential home, the Confederate White House in Richmond. Somehow he slipped, toppled over the railing, and fell to the brick pavement below.

April 30, 1865 – During the Civil War, a Federal operation took place in the vicinity of Brashear City, La.

April 30, 1866 – John Edward Witherington, who died at the age 77 in 1944, was born. While postmaster in the China community, he established the first rural postal route in Conecuh County, Ala.

April 30, 1867 - Burton C. Mossman, a rancher turned lawman, was born in Aurora, Ill.

April 30, 1875 – French explorer, lithographer and cartographer Jean-Frédéric Waldeck passed away at the claimed age of 109 years and 45 days. He supposedly died of a heart attack while eying a beautiful woman near the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

April 30, 1877 – American-French writer and author Alice B. Toklas was born in San Francisco, Calif.

April 30, 1879 - At a meeting of the Evergreen town council on this evening the thanks of that body were unanimously tendered to W.H. Hawkins, Marshal of the Town of Evergreen, for “his faithful, prompt and efficient services in the discharge of the duties of his office.”

April 30, 1879 - Someone shot two cows belonging to E.R. Sampey, one of them a fine milk cow. “No person has a right to injure the stock of another in this way without first warning the owner that his stock are mischievous, and he fails to yoke them or use some others means to prevent their doing mischief,” according to The Evergreen Star. “And besides a man must keep a lawful fence before he can damage stock for jumping or otherwise breaking into his farm. Mr. Sampey’s cow is a very valuable one, and whoever shot her should be made to suffer.”

April 30, 1885 – Governor of New York David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls would not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use.

April 30, 1886 – The Monroe Journal reported that the Hon. N. Stallworth of Evergreen was in attendance during Monroe County (Ala.) Circuit Court during the previous week.

April 30, 1886 – The Monroe Journal reported that fishing excursions to Flat Creek and other streams were being talked of.

April 30, 1886 – The Monroe Journal reported that the grand jury found 29 true bills during the previous week.

April 30, 1886 – The Monroe Journal reported that political candidates were “on the wing,” and that county politics were “becoming somewhat lively.”

April 30, 1888 – Poet and critic John Crowe Ransom was born in Pulaski, Tenn.

April 30, 1889 - George Washington's inauguration became the first U.S. national holiday.

April 30, 1891 - The ladies of Monroe County planned to present a flag to the military company at Buena Vista on this Thursday with appropriate ceremonies. The flag was to be delivered by the company’s sponsor, Miss Dovie Finklea. A reunion of all Confederate veterans was also to be held at the same time and place. All old soldiers in Monroe and adjoining counties were invited to attend. Addresses were to be made by several invited guests.

April 30, 1896 – The Monroe Journal reported that B.M. Miller, Esq. of Camden; the Hon. P.C. Walker and Jas. E. Stallworth, Esq., of Evergreen; and that the Hon. Jas. M. Davison of Brewton was in attendance during Monroe County (Ala.) Circuit Court that week.

April 30, 1896 – Monroe County Circuit Court adjourned on this Thursday afternoon and Judge Anderson and Solicitor Elmore left on the following morning for their home at Demopolis. There were five persons convicted and sentenced to terms in the penitentiary, two for murder and three for grand larceny, viz: Annie Nettles, manslaughter, two years; Sam Rogers, murder, 10 years; Sam Williams, grand larceny, 18 months; Dan Brown, same charge, three years; Tom Ross, same charge, 25 months. Marion Mixon, white, charged with murder, was acquitted.

April 30, 1899 – Charles Lewis Scott passed away at the age of 72 at Eliska in Monroe County and was buried in the Scott-English Cemetery at Eliska. Scott was born in Richmond, Va. on Jan. 26, 1827 and went on to graduate from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. He became a lawyer before traveling to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Scott served in the California State Assembly from 1854 to 1856 and represented California in Congress from 1857 to 1861. When the Civil War began, he resigned his seat in Congress and joined the Fourth Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, of the Confederate Army, serving as major. He never returned to California. In 1861 he suffered a serious leg wound at the First Battle of Bull Run and resigned his commission due to injury in 1862, after the Battle of Seven Pines. After the war, Scott farmed in Wilcox County, Alabama, then during 1869–1879 was a journalist. He was a delegate to every Democratic National Convention from the end of the Civil War to 1896. In 1885, he was appointed by President Cleveland as minister to Venezuela, serving until he resigned in 1889. He returned to the U.S. and farmed.

April 30, 1900 - Hawaii was organized as an official U.S. territory.

April 30, 1900 – Casey Jones died in a train wreck in Vaughan, Miss., while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.

April 30, 1905 – Monroeville, Alabama’s town marshal raided and arrested six gamblers. They appeared in Monroeville’s mayor’s court the next day and were fined.

April 30, 1915 – The month of April 1915 was said to be the driest on record, according to the weather observer in Evergreen, Ala. During April, only .20 inches of rainfall was recorded. It was said that not since 1873 has there been an April in which less than an inch of rainfall was recorded.

April 30, 1916 - George W. Brooks, one of Conecuh County’s oldest citizens, died at his home, three miles north of Evergreen on this Sunday morning after a long illness. Brooks “was one of the best known men in this section, having been in the wood business for the past 20 years or more his business brought him in contact with all classes of people. He was a great friend of the small boys who delighted to ride with him on his wagon and to assist him in unloading his wood,” according to The Conecuh Record.

April 30, 1917 - The so-called Battle of the Boot marked the end of the British army’s Samarra Offensive, launched the previous month by Anglo-Indian forces under the regional commander in chief, Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, against the important Turkish railroad at Samarra, some 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).

April 30, 1917 – The board of trustees of the Baptist Orphanage in Evergreen reelected the Rev. John W. Stewart as superintendent of the Baptist Orphanage on this Monday and he promptly accepted the position.

April 30, 1922 - Charlie Robertson of the Chicago White Sox threw a perfect game against the Detroit Tigers.

April 30, 1928 – Birmingham, Ala. native Spud Davis made his Major League Baseball debut for the St. Louis Cardinals.

April 30, 1939 - Lou Gehrig played his last game with the New York Yankees, having played in 2,130 consecutive games.

April 30, 1939 – Around 1,000 people watched as the first live public television broadcast was aired by the NBC network to between 100 and 200 television sets in New York City as President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke at the opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair in Flushing, NY.

April 30, 1943 – During World War II’s “Operation Mincemeat,” the submarine HMS Seraph surfaced in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.

April 30, 1945 – During World War II, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raised the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building. One week later Germany surrendered unconditionally.

April 30, 1945 – Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Annie Dillard was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. and is most famous for her 1974 book, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.”

April 30, 1947 – In Nevada, the Boulder Dam was renamed the Hoover Dam a second time.

April 30, 1950 - The Evergreen Greenies were scheduled to open a 30-game Dixie Amateur League schedule with an afternoon game in Bay Minette on this Sunday. The game was originally scheduled to be played in Evergreen, but due to a conflict with a concert already set for the stadium on this Sunday, the game was moved to Bay Minette, according to Manager Warren Bolton. Bolton said that Bay Minette had swapped dates with Evergreen and would play in Evergreen on May 28. As of April 27, Bolton and Edsel Johnson had not determined their starting line-up and said that no final decision would be made until the final practice session on April 28. Both managers said that the team had shown definite improvement in all departments in recent practice sessions and should be able to hold its own in Bay Minette on this Sunday.

April 30, 1955 – A square dance was scheduled to be held on this Saturday night, with music by Uncle Charlie and the Conecuh Play Boys, at the Evergreen Recreation Center (Old Armory), sponsored by the Evergreen (Ala.) Junior Chamber of Commerce. Admission was 75 cents. Also that night, another square dance was scheduled to be held at Lyeffion High School, admission 75 cents, at 8 p.m., sponsored by Quarterback Club.

April 30, 1957 – Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery entered into force.

April 30, 1961 - Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants hit four home runs against the Milwaukee Braves.

April 30, 1966 - Joe McKissick, a member of the Monroeville Jaycees, was elected state vice-president of the Jaycees at a district Jaycee meeting in Citronelle on this Saturday night. He was to serve a one-year term. As a vice-president of the state organization, McKissick was to represent the six clubs in the district at all state meetings, preside over district meetings, etc.

April 30, 1970 - Billy Williams of the Chicago Cubs became the first National League player to play in 1,000 straight games.

April 30, 1973 – During the Watergate scandal, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that White House Counsel John Dean had been fired and that other top aides, most notably H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, had resigned.

April 30, 1975 – During the Fall of Saigon, Communist forces gained control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ended with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Dương Văn Minh.

April 30, 1976 – On this Friday, Sparta Academy’s baseball team slipped past Escambia, 7-6, with Jerry Peacock on the mound. Freddie Sellers had two hits and Ronnie Pugh one.

April 30, 1977 – Darlene Stevens, 21, and her two-year-old daughter, Christine Michelle, both of Conecuh County, Ala. were killed in a two-car collision on a Butler County road.

April 30, 1977 - Kathryn Tucker Windham of Selma told ghost stories during a program at the “Flea Market” event held at the L&N Depot in Evergreen, Ala. on this Saturday. The event was sponsored by the Murder Creek Historical Society.

April 30, 1979 – The Alston-Cobb House (now the Clarke County Historical Museum) in Grove Hill, Ala. was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

April 30, 1979 - Monroe Academy’s baseball team cruised to an easy 11-1 win over Sparta Academy behind two-hit pitching on this Monday afternoon at the Murphy Club field. Sparta stayed in the game until the top of the sixth inning, trailing only 4-1 at that time, when Monroe exploded for six runs. Tommy Hutcheson and Ronny McKenzie collected one hit each to account for Sparta’s attack. Mike Mixon scored the only run for the Warriors after getting on base on an error in the third inning. Jeff Johnson was the losing pitcher. Sports Information Director Byron Warren Jr. stated that through the 11 games played these three players are leading in batting statistics for the Warriors: Terry Peacock, batting .363 with eight RBI; Tommy Hutcheson, batting .357 with six RBI; and Ronny McKenzie, batting .357 with 11 RBI.

April 30, 1983 – J.W. Coburn of Evergreen, Ala. won first place in the 1983 Jaycee Bass Tournament at the Camp McMillan Boy Scout Retreat Pond on U.S. Highway 31 near Brewton. Coburn received a trophy and a bass tackle box. Coburn won the tournament while fishing from the bank with a cane pole and wigglers against fishermen in bass boats with all types of rods, reels and lures.

April 30, 1988 - Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" fell out of the Billboard 200 chart for the first time in 725 weeks.

April 30, 1992 – Larry Morrison resigned as Evergreen (Ala.) Police Chief to become Repton’s police chief, a position he held prior to being named Evergreen’s chief on Nov. 5, 1991. Morrison replaced former Evergreen chief Leroy Hall, who resigned on Aug. 23, 1991. Evergreen Mayor Lee Smith named Lt. Earnest Section as “acting chief” to replace Morrison.

April 30, 1994 - Evergreen weather observer Harry Ellis reported that total rainfall for April 1994 was 6.50 inches.

April 30, 1994 - Deidre Martin, a junior at Monroe Academy, was named Monroe County’s Junior Miss for 1995. Martin was chosen for the honor from a field of 13 area high school juniors on this Saturday night. Other contestants that year included Summer Bodiford, Jill Davis, LeAnne Duke, Misty Godwin, Nicole Hobbs, LaWanda Holland, Rhonda Luker, Jill Maughon, Claire McKinley, Angela Petty, Dawn Rasco, Ginger Ray and Angela Smith.

April 30, 1994 - Frisco City High School got the most out of two base hits on this Saturday to pound Fruitdale, 14-3, in the first round of the 1A state baseball playoffs in Frisco City. Senior center fielder Tony Gibbs and junior second baseman Andy Lambert recorded a double each to lead the Area 2 champion Whippets past the Pirates, runners-up in Area 1. Brent Enzor, a senior right-hander, went the distance on the mound for the Whippets, striking out four batters. Larry Snowden was FCHS’s head baseball coach.

April 30, 1996 - The New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles played the longest nine-inning game in Major League Baseball history. The game took four hours and 21 minutes.

April 30, 1996 - Ownership of The Monroe Journal changed, and the new owners pledged to continue the newspaper’s tradition of outstanding community journalism. New owners were Kermit P. “Bo” Bolton and Jodie Bolton of Flomaton and Journal editor Marilyn Handley. The sale was announced on this Tuesday by former publisher Steve Stewart. The Stewart family sold The Journal to the Boltons. Ms. Handley purchased a minority of the newspaper’s stock from the Boltons.

April 30, 1997 - The Atlanta Braves set a Major League Baseball record when they got their 19th win in the month of April.

April 30, 1998 – Clarke Mills, a historic textile factory in Jackson, Ala.; the Grove Hill Courthouse Square Historic District in Grove Hill, Ala.; and the Whatley Historic District in Whatley, Ala.; were added to the National Register of Historic Places.

April 30, 1998 - The first Alabama Writers Symposium opened in Monroeville, Ala.

April 30, 2002 - Alex Rodriguez became the second youngest major league player to reach 250 home runs. He was 26 years and 277 days old.

April 30, 2004 - The Harper Lee Award for Alabama's Distinguished Writer was given to Alabama author Sonia Sanchez at the Alabama Writers Symposium in Monroeville, Ala.

April 30, 2004 – U.S. media released graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.