Saturday, April 22, 2017

Today in History for April 22, 2017

Dewitt Lowrey of Atmore, Ala.
April 22, 1500 - Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered Brazil.


April 22, 1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés established a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico.

April 22, 1692 – In connection with the Salem witchcraft trials, Mary Easty, another of Rebecca Nurse's sisters who defended her, was examined by John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin. Hathorne and Corwin also examined Nehemiah Abbott, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Mary Black, Sarah Wildes and Mary English.

April 22, 1707 – Novelist Henry Fielding was born in Sharpham, England.

April 22, 1724 – Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, Prussia.

April 22, 1778 - Commander John Paul Jones began an American raid on the port at Whitehaven, England.

April 22, 1833 – English engineer and explorer Richard Trevithick died at the age of 62 in Dartford, Kent, England.

April 22, 1844 – Lewis Powell, who was hanged as a Lincoln assassination conspirator, was born in Randolph County, Ala.

April 22, 1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee was appointed commander of Virginia's forces with the rank of major general.

April 22, 1861 - The Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia was lost to the Confederates, which made the Washington Navy Yard essential. It was also running short of personnel. On this day, the commandant, Capt. Franklin Buchanan, suffered a change of allegiance and went South. The Chief of Navy Ordnance, George Magruder, had an outbreak of pacifism and went to Canada for the duration. The entire yard was down to 150 men after the shuffling was done.

April 22, 1862 – Lt. William Lee of the Conecuh Guards was promoted to the rank of captain.

April 22, 1862 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought in Arkansas Pass, Texas. Harrisonburg and Luray, Va. were occupied by Federal forces

April 22, 1863 - Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson's troops cut telegraph wires near Macon, Miss. during a two-week raid along the length of the state. This action was a diversion in General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last remaining Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. On April 22, he dispatched Co. B of the 7th Illinois regiment to destroy telegraph lines at Macon, while Grierson rode to Newton Station.

April 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, a skirmish was fought in the vicinity of Tuscumbia, Ala. at Rock Cut.

April 22, 1863 - After receiving his new uniform on this day, Admiral Farragut prepared a letter which was sent to the assistant Secretary of the Navy. It read, in part, “Pray do not be changing our uniform every week or two.” He goes on, “The star is the designation of an admiral and should therefore be visible...but this adding stripes until they reach a man’s elbow ...is a great error. You must count the stripes to ascertain the officer’s rank, which at any distance is almost impossible.”

April 22, 1863 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought in the vicinity of Washington, La., on the Bayou Boeuf Road; at Fredericktown, Mo.; in the vicinity of Hartsville, Tenn.; at Point Pleasant, West Va.; and at Fisher’s Hill, out from Strasburg, Va.

April 22, 1863 - A three-day Federal operation between Belle Pain to Port Royal, Va. began. Federal transports successfully ran past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg and Warrenton, Miss.

April 22, 1864 - Union Lieutenant Colonel Francis Drake's troops left Camden, Arkansas.

April 22, 1864 – The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864 that mandated that the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.

April 22, 1864 – During the Civil War, a three-day Federal operation between Jacksonport and Augusta, Ark. began. Skirmishes were fought in the vicinity of Cotton Plant, Ark.; at Cloutierville and Tunica Bend, La. and on the Duck River in Tennessee.

April 22, 1865 – During the Civil War, Talladega, Ala. was occupied by Federal troops.

April 22, 1865 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Buzzard Roost, Ga.; near the mouth of the Big Gravois, Mo., in the vicinity of Osage, Mo.; in the vicinity of Linn Creek, Mo.; and near Howard’s Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. A six-day Federal operation began against Indians in the Nebraska Territory. A two-day Federal operation against Indians began in the Dakota Territory.

April 22, 1876 – The first game in the history of National League was played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. Eight baseball teams began the inaugural season of the National League, and this game is often pointed to as the beginning of Major League Baseball. Boston beat Philadelphia, 6-5.

April 22, 1886 - Alabama author Father Abram J. Ryan died in Louisville, Ky.

April 22, 1889 - Louisa Frances Garland, the wife of University of Alabama President Landon Garland, passed away at the age of 76 and was buried in Oxford Memorial Cemetery in Oxford in Lafayette County, Miss. Tradition states that Louisa Garland convinced Union soldiers not to burn the President’s Mansion when they attacked the University’s campus on April 4, 1865.

April 22, 1889 – German SS officer Richard Glücks was born in Odenkirchen, German Empire.

April 22, 1895 – The spring term of Monroe County (Ala.) Circuit Court convened at 12 p.m. with Judge John C. Anderson presiding and Solicitor Benjamin F. Elmore representing the state. The criminal docket was “unusually heavy” with two capital cases set for trial, one for murder and another for arson.

April 22, 1898 - The first shot of the Spanish-American war occurred when the USS Nashville captured a Spanish merchant ship.

April 22, 1899 – Novelist and critic Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.

April 22, 1905 – The drying house at the Shoal Creek Lumber Co. at Nadawah, Ala. caught fire on this Saturday around 3 p.m. According to the Camden Banner, “pumps were at once set to work and a steady stream of water was poured on the highly combustible material, but to no purpose.”

April 22, 1912 – In a surprising move, the State Board of Control elected Prof. J.T. McKee, principal of Cullman County High School, as president of the Second District Agricultural School in Evergreen, Ala., replacing Prof. Henry T. Lile. The meeting was held in the office of Alabama Gov. Emmet O’Neal in Montgomery. McKee was to assume charge of the SDAS on July 1. The Board of Control was composed of O’Neal, Henry J. Willingham, State Superintendent of Education; Capt. Reuben F. Kolb, State Commissioner of Agriculture; C.A. O’Neal of Andalusia and J.T. Williams of Evergreen.

April 22, 1914 - Babe Ruth made his pitching debut with the Baltimore Orioles.

April 22, 1914 – German SS officer Michael Wittmann was born in Vogelthal, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire.

April 22, 1915 - The New York Yankees wore pinstripes and the hat-in-the-ring logo for the first time.

April 22, 1915 – The Monroe Journal reported, in “County High School Notes,” that “both school and town thoroughly enjoyed three most interesting ball games between Atmore and Monroeville. Our boys were determined not to break their record and as usual, come out victorious.”

April 22, 1915 – The use of poison gas in World War I escalated when 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas was released as a chemical weapon against two French colonial division in the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium.

April 22, 1922 - Legendary jazz bassist, bandleader, and composer Charles Mingus, sometimes known as "The Angry Man of Jazz," was born in Nogales, Arizona.

April 22, 1922 - Corporal Dewitt Lowrey was born in Atmore, Ala. He was a soldier with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Lowrey was one of the 140 Toccoa men of Easy Company. Lowrey's life story was featured in the 2009 book “We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories from Band of Brothers.”

April 22, 1933 – Extensive damage to berry and corn crops was reported from practically every section of Conecuh County, Ala. from hailstorms that visited almost every neighborhood in the county. In some instances, the stones were large, some communities reporting stones the size of guinea eggs, while in others they were smaller. Duration of the storms varied in the different localities, some reports saying the hail lasted from five to 15 minutes.

April 22, 1940 – The winless Brewton Millers baseball team released two players on this Monday and signed a new pitcher and outfielder. The team then went out and won a 9-1 victory over Troy behind knuckle ball pitcher Bill Israel. Israel scattered seven Trojan singles, but infield errors presented Troy with one run. Through the first four games of the season up to this point, the fielding and batting of Gilbert Leatherwood, local first baseman, had been outstanding. During the first four games, he secured 10 hits, including a homer and two doubles, out of 16 times at bat for an average of .625.

April 22, 1943 – Poet Louise Gluck was born in New York City.

April 22, 1945 – During World War II, after learning that Soviet forces had taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admitted defeat in his underground bunker and stated that suicide was his only recourse.

April 22, 1946 - James Nelson Golson, a 32-year-old former Conecuh County resident, drowned when he fell overboard from a ship in Kwalalein Harbor in the Marshall Islands. Waterman Steamship Corp. officials in Mobile were advised of the accidental drowning of Golson, who was third assistant engineer on the WV Wall Knot, occurred as the seaman moved to shore on a smaller vessel. The body was not recovered, according to a radio message received from the master of the Wall Knot. Golson was the son of Mr. and Mrs. L.P. Golson, former Conecuh County residents. Born on Sept. 12, 1912, a grave for Golson is located at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.

April 22, 1949 – Dr. Neff, the “Mystifier of Magicians,” was scheduled to present his “original Madhouse of Mystery” at the Pix Theatre in Evergreen, Ala. on this Friday night. The screen show was scheduled for 9:30 p.m. and the stage show was scheduled for 10:30 p.m.

April 22, 1949 - Monroe County High School’s baseball team was out to break a two-game losing streak as it was scheduled to play Atmore High School on this Friday afternoon and the strong Greenville High School team in Monroeville on Mon., April 25. Both games were to be played at the American Legion field, beginning at 3 p.m. Al Ryland was slated to pitch for Monroeville. Jack Simpson, who recently joined the team, was expected to add pitching strength, MCHS head coach LaVaughan Hanks said.

April 22, 1951 - Alabama author Andrew Hudgins was born in Killeen, Texas.

April 22, 1962 – A large sawmill fire, the second in the town’s history, occurred at Vredenburgh, Ala. The mill didn’t resume operations again until Jan. 4, 1965.

April 22, 1967 – Actress Sheryl Lee, who played Laura Palmer on “Twin Peaks,” was born in Augsburg, West Germany.

April 22, 1968 - In a news conference, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford declared that the South Vietnamese had “acquired the capacity to begin to insure their own security [and] they are going to take over more and more of the fighting.”

April 22, 1969 – British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston won the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and completed the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.

April 22, 1970 – Earth Day, the world’s largest secular holiday, was first observed.

April 22, 1972 - Antiwar demonstrations prompted by the accelerated U.S. bombing in Southeast Asia drew somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000 marchers in New York; 30,000 to 40,000 in San Francisco; 10,000 to 12,000 in Los Angeles; and smaller gatherings in Chicago and other cities throughout the country.

April 22, 1976 - Alabama author Joe David Brown died at his home near Mayfield, Ga.

April 22, 1977 - Purnell Salter, 80, of Burnt Corn and Evergreen died in a Monroeville, Ala. hospital. Salter was a member of a prominent, pioneer Conecuh County family, and his ancestors were among the first settlers of the county. He had a keen interest in local history and genealogy and provided The Evergreen Courant newspaper with historical information on many occasions. Born on Dec. 26, 1896, he is buried in the Bethany Baptist Church Cemetery in Monroeville.

April 22, 1982 - The Atlanta Braves ended their 13-game winning streak to start the season. It was the longest streak of wins at the beginning of the season in Major League Baseball history.

April 22, 1985 - David Lancaster of Repton exhibited the Grand Champion of the 40th Annual Conecuh County Steer Show in Evergreen, Ala. on this Monday. First Alabama Bank of Conecuh County, represented by Tom Salo, paid $1.50 per pound for the 1,230-pound champion, a total of $1,845. Steve Lancaster of Repton had the Reserve Champion. The 1,140-pound steer sold for $1.28 per pound to the Conecuh-Monroe Counties Gas District, represented by Morgan Holley, for a total of $,1459.20. Winners in the Senior Showmanship competition were Chris Godwin, Steve Lancaster, Tim Covin and Tommy Shipp.

April 22, 1991 - Weather observer Harry Ellis reported 1.60 inches of rain in Evergreen, Ala.

April 22, 1993 – Alabama lieutenant governor Jim Folsom Jr. became Alabama’s 50th governor when Guy Hunt was convicted of state ethics law violations. Folsom Jr.’s term as governor ended on Jan. 16, 1995. He was succeeded by Fob James, who narrowly beat Folsom during the 1994 governor’s race.

April 22, 1993 - The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

April 22, 1994 – Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, died in New York City at the age of 81.

April 22, 1994 – Episode No. 21 of “The X-Files” – entitled “Tooms” – aired for the first time.

April 22, 1999 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Castleberry held its annual Strawberry Festival during the past weekend with a “nice, large crowd that turned out. Games, music, a street dance and family fun was the rule of the day and a good time was had by all.”

April 22, 1999 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Small Loan, Inc. recently held its grand opening and ribbon cutting in conjunction with Evergreen-Conecuh County Chamber of Commerce. The company specialized in small, quick approval loans and was located next door to Dollar General across the street from the A&P.

April 22, 1999 – The Evergreen Courant reported that members of the Allied Community Development Corp., which was organized by the late Jack M. Wainwright III, formerly of Evergreen, had established a scholarship at Birmingham-Southern, his alma mater, as a memorial in his honor. He was a former loan officer at First Alabama Bank.

April 22, 2004 - Pat Tillman, who gave up his pro football career to enlist in the U.S. Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, was killed by friendly fire while serving in Afghanistan. He was 27 years old.

April 22, 2006 - The first Alabama Book Festival was held in Montgomery, Ala.


April 22, 2010 - The NFL Draft was aired in prime time for the first time.

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