Today in History for April 9, 2016

Curley Lambeau

April 9, 1288 – During the Mongol invasions of Vietnam, Yuan forces were defeated by Trần forces in the Battle of Bach Dang in present-day northern Vietnam.

April 9, 1585 – The expedition organised by Sir Walter Raleigh departed England for Roanoke Island (now in North Carolina) to establish the Roanoke Colony.

April 9, 1682 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed all lands that touched it for France and named it Louisiana.

April 9, 1692 – In connection with the Salem witchcraft trials, Kevin O'Brady, Michael Cote and Curtis Flannery were accused of witchcraft by local Daniella DiIorio.

April 9, 1770 - Captain James Cook discovered Botany Bay on the Australian continent.

April 9, 1778 - Jeremiah Wadsworth was named commissary general of purchases for the Continental Army at the recommendation of General George Washington.

April 9, 1782 – During the American War of Independence, the Battle of the Saintes began off the coast of Dominica in the West Indies.

April 9, 1821 – Poet Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris.

April 9, 1859 – Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, received his steamboat pilot’s license at the age of 23.

April 9, 1862 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed Greenville, Ala. native Thomas Hill Watts as Attorney General of the Confederate States, an office that Watts filled until Oct. 1, 1863.

April 9, 1862 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought with Indians at Owen’s River, Calif.; and on Hoyle’s Run, in the vicinity of Quincy and another at Jackson, Mo. Federal forces also evacuated Jacksonville, Fla.; and a three-day Federal reconnaissance in front of Yorktown, Va. began.

April 9, 1862 - The Senate of the Confederate States of America took up the subject of conscription, the involuntary induction of men into military service. Philosophically this was a tremendous struggle. The draft was unquestionably needed in order to raise manpower for the army. However, the preservation of individual liberties had been one of the most important reasons given for many states to leave the Union. The draft would eventually be passed.

April 9, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought along the White River in Arkansas; near Sedalia, Mo.; at Blount’s Creek, N.C.; at Franklin and another along the Obion River, at Antioch Station, Tenn.; and at Gloucester Point, Va. A 35-day Federal operation began in the western portion of Louisiana.

April 9, 1864 – During the Civil war, a skirmish was fought at Prairier D’Ane, Ark.; and an engagement was fought at Pleasant Hill, La. in which Richard Taylor effectively halted Nathaniel Bank’s Red River Campaign. Also on that day, in Biblical sounding manner, General George Meade received his marching orders from General Grant. Writing from Culpeper Court House, Va., Grant sent the following instruction to the head of the Army of the Potomac: “Wherever Lee goes, there will you go also.”

April 9, 1865 – The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was the final engagement of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McClean’s home, and one of the last battles of the American Civil War. Grant allowed Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permitted soldiers to keep their horses and mules. Though there were still Confederate armies in the field, the war was officially over. The four years of fighting had killed 360,000 Union troops and 260,000 Confederate troops. Lewis Lavon Peacock was among the 26,765 troops in the Army of Northern Virginia when it surrendered at Appomattox.

April 9, 1865 – A 10-day Union expedition from Blakely to Claiborne, Ala. began and included a skirmish at Mount Pleasant, Ala. The Federals also began bombarding and the subsequent reduction of Battery Huger and Battery Tracy, near Mobile, Ala.

Aprl 9, 1898 – Pro Football Hall of Fame halfback and kicker Curley Lambeau was born in Green Bay, Wisc. He would go on to play for Notre Dame and the Green Bay Packers, and he also coached the Packers, the Chicago Cardinals and the Washhington Redskins. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1963.

April 9, 1902 – French explorer and scholar Théodore Monod was born in Rouen, France.

April 9, 1903 – Gregory Pincus, one of the inventors of the birth control pill, was born in Woodbine, N.J.

April 9, 1905 – “Considerable hail” fell in the eastern and northern portions of Conecuh County, Ala. on this Sunday afternoon.

April 9, 1912 - The first exhibition baseball game was held at Fenway Park in Boston. The game was between Red Sox and Harvard.

April 9, 1913 - The Brooklyn Dodgers' Ebbets Field opened.

April 9, 1918 – The USS Herbert, a Wickes-class destroyer, was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corp. at Camden, N.J. Named after Greenville, Ala. native and former Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert it was launched on May 8, 191 by Herbert’s daughter, Mrs. Benjamin Micou.

April 9, 1922 – German entomologist and explorer Hans Fruhstorfer was born in Passau, Germany.

April 9, 1925 – An estimated crowd of 12,000 attended the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Claiborne, Ala., believed to be the single largest event ever held in Monroe County, Ala. history.

April 9, 1926 – Hugh Hefner was born in Chicago, Ill. He would go on to become the founder, editor-in-chief, and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy magazine.

April 9, 1928 - A movie version of Alabama author Octavus Roy Cohen's book “Married Bachelors” was released.

April 9, 1928 – Parody song writer Tom Lehrer was born.

April 9, 1931 - The Scottsboro Boys, eight young men ranging in age from 13 to 21, were sentenced to die for the alleged rape of two white women on a freight train between Chattanooga, Tenn. and Scottsboro, Ala. The conviction by an all-white jury and the subsequent appeals were widely publicized and led to major protests around the world. Four of the men were freed in 1937, while the others endured lengthy prison sentences. The final prisoner was released in 1950.

April 9, 1935 - Miss Harper Gantt, a member of the senior class at Huntingdon College, left on this Tuesday for La Grange, Ga., to act as a judge in a high school dramatic tournament at La Grange College, according to The Evergreen Courant.

April 9, 1936 - William Eugene Johnson, the oldest son of Mr. and Mrs. E.A. Johnson, who accidentally shot himself while rabbit hunting, died around 11 p.m. in a hospital in Andalusia.

April 9, 1944 – Lt. Winton D. McIntyre, who graduated from Evergreen (Ala.) High School in 1940, was killed in New Guinea. Funeral services for McIntyre were held July 14, 1948 at Memorial Cemetery in Mobile, Ala. with full military honors. McIntyre, son of Mr. and Mrs. O.R. McIntyre, were former residents of Conecuh County, but later of Prichard. McIntyre was well known in Evergreen, according to The Evergreen Courant.

April 9, 1944 – “Son of Dracula,” starring Lon Chaney, Robert Paige and Evelyn Ankers, was scheduled to be shown at the Pix Theatre in Evergreen, Ala.

April 9, 1945 - National Football League officials decreed that it was mandatory for football players to wear socks in all league games.

April 9, 1945 – NFL defensive end Alden Roche was born in New Orleans, La. He went on to play for Southern University, the Denver Broncos, the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks.

April 9, 1946 – Major League Baseball first baseman Nate Colbert was born in St. Louis, Mo. He went on to play for the Houston Astros, the San Diego Padres, the Detroit Tigers, the Montreal Expos and the Oakland Athletics.

April 9, 1950 - Bill Hardy, a well-known Conecuh County, Ala. resident, and his wife, were found dead in bed at their home about 12 o’clock on this Sunday night, having apparently been dead for several hours. The discovery was made and reported by Thaddeus Hardy, their son. Conecuh County Sheriff W.D. Lewis immediately began an investigation because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the two. The final outcome of the investigation hinged largely upon an autopsy which was performed and the report of this autopsy was expected within a few days from Dr. Grubbs, State Toxicologist. In the meantime, Thaddeus Hardy was placed in jail on an open charge and was being held pending the outcome of the investigation, according to the April 13, 1950 edition of The Evergreen Courant.

April 9, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy threw out the ceremonial first pitch in Washington D.C.’s new stadium, called simply “D.C. Stadium.” In doing so, he continued a long-standing tradition that began in 1910 when President William H. Taft threw out Major League Baseball’s first opening-day pitch in Washington D.C.’s old Griffith Stadium. In 1969, the D.C. Stadium was renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, after President John F. Kennedy’s brother and attorney general, who was assassinated in 1968.

April 9, 1964 – Sports reporter Lisa Guerrero was born in Chicago, Ill.

April 9, 1965 - The Houston Astrodome held its first baseball game, which was the first indoor baseball game ever played.

April 9, 1968 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was buried.

April 9, 1969 - The Chicago Eight, indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, pleaded not guilty. The trial for the eight antiwar activists had begun in Chicago on March 20. The defendants included David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party (“Yippies”); Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; and two lesser known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines.

April 9, 1972 – Richard Floyd McCoy Jr., who staged the best-known of the so-called D.B. Cooper "copycat" hijackings on April 7, 1972, was arrested with the ransom cash in his possession, and after trial and conviction, received a 45-year sentence.

April 9, 1976 – Major League Baseball pitcher Kyle Peterson was born in Elkhorn, Neb. He played his entire career for the Milwaukee Brewers.

April 9, 1980 – The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein killed philosopher Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Bint al-Huda after three days of torture.

April 9, 1981 - Nature published part of the longest scientific name in history. With 16,569 nucleotides, the systematic name for human mitochondrial DNA is said to be 207,000 letters long.

April 9, 1985 – Major League Baseball pitcher David Robertson was born in Birmingham, Ala. He would go on to pitch for Central-Tuscaloosa High School, the University of Alabama, the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox.

April 9, 1990 - Annie Pearl Oliver, 57, of Evergreen, Ala. was killed and Ernestine Roach of Evergreen was injured in a two-vehicle accident around 3:45 p.m. on U.S. Highway 84, about four miles west of River Falls, Ala.

April 9, 1991 - Bert Holldobler and Alabama author Edward O. Wilson were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for their book “The Ants.”

April 9, 1991 - Alabama journalists Ron Casey, Harold Jackson and Joey Kennedy of The Birmingham News were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for editorials analyzing Alabama's tax system and proposing reforms.

April 9, 1992 - Australia unveiled a massive chocolate easter egg. It weighed 10,482 lbs. and stood over 23 feet tall.

April 9, 1993 - A movie version of Alabama author Tobias Wolff's book “This Boy's Life” was released.

April 9, 1998 - The National Prisoner of War Museum opened in Andersonville, Ga. at the site of an infamous Civil War camp.

April 9, 2001 – National Baseball Hall of Fame left fielder and first baseman Willie Stargell passed away at the age of 61 in Wilmington, N.C. He played his entire career for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1988.

April 9, 2002 - Alabama author Diane McWhorter was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for her book “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.”

April 9, 2003 – During the Invasion of Iraq, Baghdad fell to American forces and Iraqis turned on symbols of their former leader Saddam Hussein, pulling down a grand statue of him and tearing it to pieces.

April 9, 2006 – Former Auburn University and Major League Baseball player James Paulus “Jimmy” Outlaw passed away in Jackson, Ala. at the age of 93.

April 9, 2006 – Major League Baseball third baseman, second baseman and shortstop Billy Hitchcock passed away at the age of 89 in Opelika, Ala. During his career, he played for the Detroit Tigers, the Washington Senators, the St. Louis Browns, the Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Athletics. He would later manage the Tigers, the Baltimore Orioles and the Atlanta Braves.