Today in Southern History: March

Showing posts with label March. Show all posts

31 March 2017

The Chickamauga Footrace

31 March 1793

On this date in 1793...

Chickamauga Chief Captain Bench, and his followers attacked Moses Cockrell and several other whites leading pack animals across Powell's Mountain. Cockrell was the only survivor of the party after outrunning Bench.

Other Years:

1818 - U.S. Troops commanded by General Andrew Jackson burned the Seminole town of Tallahassee in Florida during the First Seminole War.
1863 - John S. Mosby's cavalry defeated Federals at Drainesville, Virginia.
1862 - Naval action at Island #10 on Mississippi River.
1902 - In Tennessee, 22 coal miners were killed by an explosion.
1945 - "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.
1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter of Georgia deregulated the banking industry.

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30 March 2017

Florida Territory

30 March 1822

On this date in 1822...

The U.S. Congress combined East and West Florida into Florida Territory.

Other Years:

1854 - Indians successfully defeated a company of U.S. Dragoons at Cieneguilla, New Mexico.
1862 - Federal troops attacked Union City, Tennessee.
1863 - Federal troops and Pin Indian allies attacked the Cherokee capital at Tahlequah, Indian Territory.
1870 - Texas became the last Confederate state readmitted to the union.
1909 - In Oklahoma, Seminole Indians revolted against lower pay for government jobs.
1910 - The Mississippi Legislature founded The University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg.
1981 - President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr. Also wounded were White House news secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer.

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29 March 2017

The Step-Down

29 March 1973

On this date in 1973...

The last United States combat troops left South Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.

Other Years:

1865 – There was heavy fighting in Petersburg, Virginia at the Boydton and Quaker Roads.
1906 - Across the South, coal miners walked off the job seeking higher wages.
1918 – Wal-Mart founder and CEO Sam Walton was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.
1943 - U.S. rationing of meat, butter and cheese began during World War II.
1971 - U.S. Army Lt. William Calley Jr., of Miami, Florida was found guilty of the premeditated murder of at least 22 Vietnamese civilians at the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on March 16, 1968 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
1979 - The Committee on Assassinations Report issued by U.S. House of Representatives stated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the result of a conspiracy.
1992 - Arkansas Governor and Democrat presidential front-runner Bill Clinton said "I didn't inhale and I didn't try it again" in reference to when he had experimented with marijuana.
1998 - Tennessee won the woman's college basketball championship over Louisiana after setting a NCAA record with regular season record or 39-0.

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28 March 2017

Great Balls of Fire

28 March 1958

On this date in 1958...

During the opening night of a tour, Jerry Lee Lewis was enraged that he had to perform before Chuck Berry and not last. He torched his piano during his set-closing number, "Great Balls of Fire" and reportedly told Chuck, “Let’s see you top that.”

Other Years:

1818 - Confederate General Wade Hampton, III was born in Charleston, South Carolina.
1834 - The U.S. Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
1862 - Battle of Glorieta Pass, New Mexico.
1953 - “World’s Greatest Athlete” and Oklahoma native, Jim Thorpe died in Lomita, California.
1990 - Jesse Owens received the Congressional Gold Medal from U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

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27 March 2017

Horseshoe Bend

27 March 1814

On this date in 1814...

General Andrew Jackson with a force of 2000 U.S. regulars, militia, Cherokee, Choctaw, and White-Stick Creek defeated the Red Stick Creeks near Dadeville, Alabama at Horseshoe Bend. Only about 50 Red Stick warriors survived. The Red Stick leader William Weatherford was not at the battle, but would turn himself in later. The defeat led to the Treaty of Fort Jackson in August, where the Creek gave up 23 million acres of land to the United States.

Other Years:

1513 –Some sources give this as the date Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon and his expedition first sighted Florida.
1836 - Mexican troops acting on orders from Santa Anna murdered Colonel James Fannin and 341 surrendered Texas soldiers outside Goliad, Texas. Feigning death, 28 men survived to tell of the Mexican treachery.
1866 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights bill, which later became the 14th amendment.
1890 - A tornado struck Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200.
1994 - Church in Piedmont Alabama collapse during a tornado. Nineteen people were killed.
2000 - A Phillips refinery explosion killed 1 and injureed 71 in Pasadena, Texas.

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26 March 2017

La Salle

26 March 1682

On this date in 1682...

French explorers under Robert Cavelier de La Salle made the first European contact the Natchez Indians. His Lieutenant, Henri de Tonti was first to meet the Natchez. De Tonti who would later found Arkansas Post was called “Iron Hand” because of his artificial hand he wore due to a battle injury.

Other Years:

1804 - The U.S. Congress orders the removal of all Indians east of Mississippi to Louisiana Territory.
1804 - The Territory of Orleans organized in the Louisiana Purchase.
1863 - Voters in Western Virginia approved the gradual emancipation of slaves.
1864 - Battle of Paducah, Kentucky.
1937 - Spinach growers in Crystal City, Texas, erected a statue of Popeye.
1958 - The U.S. Army launched America's third successful satellite, Explorer III from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1982 - Ground breaking ceremonies were held in Washington, DC, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

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25 March 2017

Sir Walter Raleigh

25 March 1584

On this date in 1584...

Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonization of North America. The colony was to be named Virginia.

Other Years:

1655 - Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.
1713 - European and Indian forces under general James Moore, son of South Carolina Governor James Mooreattack the Tuscarora fort of Nohoroco, North Carolina. In the fighting 192 Tuscarora are killed, and almost 400 taken prisoner. After this defeat, the Tuscarora cease to be a threat in North Carolina.
1776 - The Continental Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.
1865 - Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman in Virginia.
1905 - Confederate battle flags that were captured during the War of Northern Aggression were returned to the Southern States.
1931 - The Scottsboro Boys, five young black men accused of raping a white woman, were arrested in Scotsboro, Alabama.
1941 - The first paprika mill was incorporated in Dollon, South Carolina.
1965 - The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.

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24 March 2017

Elvis Drafted

24 March 1958

On this date in 1958...

Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army and processed at Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas. He served in Germany from October 1958 to March 1960.

Other Years:

1617 - King James I of England directed the Anglican church to collect funds to build churches and schools to educate the Indians of Virginia.
1629 - The first game law in the American colonies was passed by Virginia.
1864 - General Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry recaptured Union City, Tennessee.
1955 - Tennessee Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" debuted on Broadway.
1982 - The submarine U.S.S. Jacksonville collided with a Turkish freighter off the Virginia coast.
1998 - Two students, aged 11 and 13, opened fire upon teachers and students with rifles from ambush at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Five people were killed and ten wounded. Arkansas Law at the time (later changed) required the suspects be held as juveniles and released at age 18.
1998 - A former FBI agent announced that papers found in James Earl Ray's car supported a conspiracy theory in the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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23 March 2017

Liberty or Death

23 March 1775

On this date in 1775...

Patrick Henry delivered the “Give me Liberty, or give me death!” speech to the Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.

Other Years:

1730 - Sir Alexander Cuming held a council of 300 Cherokee Chiefs in Keowee, North Carolina. Cumming used threats and bribes to get the Cherokee to acknowledge George II of England as their Soveriegn ruler.
1862 - First Battle of Kernstown, VA
1889 – U.S. President Benjamin Harrison announced a plan to open part of Indian territory to white settlers.
1912 - The Dixie Cup was invented.
1925 - Tennessee became the first U.S. state to outlaw teaching the theory of evolution when its governor signed the Butler Act.
1965 - America’s first two-person space flight began as Gemini 3 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard.
2005 - A major explosion at the Texas City Refinery kills 15 workers.

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22 March 2017

The Powhattan Massacre

22 March 1622

On this date in 1622...

Tribes of the Powhattan Confederation killed 347 English settlers in and around Jamestown, Virginia in the first American Indian massacre of whites.

Other Years:

1764 - Tunica, Ofo, Avoyel, and Choctaw Indians attacked a group of English boats searching for a fugitive slave who has taken shelter with the Indians. Six Englishmen were killed before they abandoned the search.
1790 - Thomas Jefferson of Virginia became the first U.S. Secretary of State.
1817 - Conrederate General Baxton Bragg was born in Warrenton, North Carolina.
1864 - Confederate Army of Tennessee troops languishing in their winter quarters fought "The Great Snowball Fight" near Dalton, Georgia.
1871 - William Holden of North Carolina became the first governor to be removed by impeachment.
1934 - The first Masters golf championship began in Augusta, Georgia.
1972 - Congress sent the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. It fell short of the three-fourths approval needed.
1975 - A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama causes citizens to evacuate because of a dangerous loss of cooling water to the reactor.

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21 March 2017

Bentonville

21 March 1865

On this date in 1865...

Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's troops halted the rampage of Sherman's yankee troops through the Carolinas at Bentonville, North Carolina.

Other Years:

1788 - A Fire destroyed 856 buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana.
1841 - More than 200 Tallahassee Seminole prisoners boarded a boat in Tampa Bay bound for Indian Territory. Fifteen of the Indians die in transit.
1883 - Chiricahua Apaches Chato, Bonito and Chihuahua raided a mining settlement near Tombstone, Arizona and escaped to Mexico, triggering a raid into Mexico by General George Crook to find the Apaches.
1891 - A Hatfield married a McCoy in West Virginia and ended the bloody 20-year feud that started with an accusation of pig theft.
1916 - Confederate guerrilla and bandit Thomas Coleman "Cole" Younger died at Lee's Summit, Missouri.
1925 - Tennessee passed The Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution.
1965 - More than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
1989 - Randall Dale Adams was released from a Texas prison when his conviction was overturned after the documentary "The Thin Blue Line" challenged evidence of Adams' conviction for killing a police officer.

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20 March 2017

Zangara Executed

20 March 1933

On this date in 1933...

Italian immigrant Giuseppe Zangara was executed in Florida's electric chair for killing Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and shooting four others in an attempt to assassinate President Franklin D. Roosevelt at an event in Miami.

Other Years:

1699 - While explorating up the Mississippi River, French explorer Lemoyne d'Iberville visited the village of the Houma Indians.
1864 - Eight hundred Navajo, mostly women, children and old men began the 300 mile “Long Walk” to Fort Sumner and the Bosque Redondo Reservation, in New Mexico. More than a hundred died in a snow storm before reaching the reservation.
1865 - A plan by John Wilkes Booth to abduct U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was ruined when Lincoln changed his plans and did not appear at the Soldier’s Home near Washington, DC.
1868 – The James-Younger Gang was blamed for a bank robbery in Russelville, Kentucky that netted $14,000.
1965 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered 4,000 troops to protect the Selma-Montgomery civil rights marchers.
1989 - A Washington, DC district court judge blocked a curfew imposed by Mayor Barry and the City Council.
1997 - Liggett Group, the maker of Chesterfield cigarettes, settled 22 state lawsuits by admitting the industry marketed cigarettes to teenagers and agreed to warn on every pack that smoking is addictive.
2000 - Former Black Panther Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, once known as H. Rap Brown, was captured following a shootout that left a sherriff's deputy dead.

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19 March 2017

The Council House Fight

19 March 1840

On this date in 1840...

During a peace conference and prisoner exchange between the Comanche and Texas settlers at the San Antonio council house a fight erupted after the Texans saw how Matilda Lockhart had been mutilated by her captors. Seven whites and thirty-three Comanche including 12 chiefs died in what became known as the Council House Fight.

Other Years:

1687 - While searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle was murdered by his own men.
1865 - The Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina began. This was the last significant attempt to stop the invading federal army of W.T. Sherman.
1879 - Jim Currie opened fire on several actors near Marshall, Texas wounding Maurice Barrymore and killing Ben Porter.
1908 - The state of Maryland barred Christian Scientists from practicing without medical diplomas.
1953 - Tennessee Williams' play "Camino Real" premiered in New York City.
1954 - The first rocket-sled on rails was tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1968 - Students at Howard University seized the administration building.

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18 March 2017

Calhoun

18 March 1782

On this date in 1782 – Southern statesman, Secretary of War, and U.S. Vice-President John C. Calhoun was born in Abbeville, South Carolina.

Other Years:

1541 - Hernando de Soto observed the first recorded flood in American history on the Mississippi River.
1865 - The Confederate States Congress adjourned its final sesion.
1937 - A gas explosion at the school in New London, Texas killed 294 victims.
1954 - Texas tycoon Howard Hughes bought RKO Pictures for $23,489,478, making it the first motion picture studio to be owned by an individual.
1968 - The U.S. Congress repealed the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency and took America off the gold standard.
1981 - The U.S. government disclosed that it tested biological weapons in Texas in 1966.
1990 - In Tampa, Florida, a little league player was killed when hit with a pitch.
2003 - FBI agents raided the corporate headquarters of the HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama on suspicion of corporate fraud by the company's executives.

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17 March 2017

The Transylvania Company

17 March 1775

On this date in 1775 - The Transylvania Company, headed by North Carolina Judge Richard Henderson, traded $10,000 worth of trade goods and $2,000 to Cherokee Chiefs Attakullaculla and Oconostota for most of western and central Kentucky, and north central Tennessee. The treaty was revoked by the governments of Virginia and North Carolina, but later used by the U.S. government as a claim on Cherokee land.

Other Years:

1828 - Confederate General Patrick R. Cleburne was born in County Cork, Ireland.
1836 - Texas abolished slavery.
1863 - Battle of Kelly's Ford, Virginia.
1886 - The Carrollton Riot in Mississippi caused the death of 20 black people.
1917 - Almost 100 women participated in America’s first bowling tournament for ladies in St. Louis, Missouri..
2007 - Mike Modano of the Dallas Stars scored his 502nd and 503rd career goals making him the all-time U.S. leader in hockey goal-scoring.

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16 March 2017

The Hot Springs Gunfight

16 March 1899

On this date in 1899...

A series of gunfights broke out over political differences and gambling profits between city police and the county sheriff’s officers in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When the smoke cleared four lawmen and a bartender lay dead, several officers and bystanders were wounded. At the time, the gunfight garnered more publicity than the better known (today) and less bloody Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Other Years:

1830 - After a shady election and a rump council, Greenwood le Flore is elected as Chief of the Choctaw Nation. Le Flore favors selling Choctaw lands and moving to Indian Territory.
1836 - The Republic of Texas approved its first constitution.
1861 - Edward Clark became Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who was impeached for refusing to support the Confederate States.
1861 - Arizona Territory voted to cease relations with the U.S. and become a Confederate Territory.
1918 - Tallulah Bankhead of Huntsille, Alabama made her New York acting debut with a role in "The Squab Farm."
1995 - The Mississippi House of Representatives formally abolished slavery and ratified the 13th Amendment.
1995 - NASA astronaut Norman Thagard of Florida became the first American to visit the Russian space station Mir.

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15 March 2017

Battle of Guilford Courthouse

15 March 1781

On this date in 1781...

A 2,100-man British force under the command of Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis defeated Major General Nathanael Greene's 4,500 Americans at the Battle of Guilford Court House in what is now Greensboro, North Carolina. The British Army lost as much as 27% of its strength, contributing to the ultimate failure of the British Southern strategy and leading to Cornwallis’s defeat at Yorktown.

Other Years:

1767 - U.S. President and General Andrew Jackson was born in the Waxhaws, North Carolina.
1818 - General Andrew Jackson invaded Florida to begin the First Seminole War with a force of 800 U.S. Army regulars, 2,000 Georgia and Tennessee volunteers, and about 1,400 Creek warriors.
1855 - Louisiana established the first health board in the U.S to regulate quarantine.
1858 - After fighting the Americans for almost 25 years, Seminole leader Billy Bowlegs surrendered with 163 of his followers and were shipped west to Indian Territory.
1863 - The British ship H.M.S. Britannia ran the Federal blockade and arrived in Wilmington, North Carolina.
1869 - Col. George Armstrong Custer discovered several large Cheyenne villages on Sweetwater Creek near the Texas-Indian Territory border. Custer captures four Cheyenne Chiefs and threatens to hang them until the Cheyenne surrender.
1922 - The first Southern radio station, WSB in Atlanta, Georgia began broadcasting.
1960 - The National Observatory at Kitt Peak, Arizona was dedicated.
1965 - Addressing a joint session of Congress, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson called for new legislation to guarantee every American’s right to vote.

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14 March 2017

Jack Ruby

14 March 1964

On this date in 1964...

Jack Ruby was found guilty and sentenced him to death for Lee Harvey Oswald's murder in Dallas, Texas. Ruby died in prison before the sentence was carried out.

Other Years:

1780 - Spanish troops captured the British outpost of Fort Charlotte in Mobile, Alabama.
1794 - Eli Whitney patented his cotton gin.
1833 - The Secretary of War had the Bureau of Indian Affairs issue orders to U.S. Marshals to remove whites from Creek lands.
1864 - Federal troops stormed and occupied Fort de Russy at Alexandria, Louisiana.
1940 - A truck full of migrant workers collided with a train outside McAllen, Texas killing 27 and injuring 15.
1995 - Norman Thagard of Marianna, Florida became the first "out-sourced" American astronaut to enter space aboard a Russian rocket.

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13 March 2017

Lincoln Rejects Peace

13 March 1861

On this date in 1861...

U.S. President Lincoln forbade Secretary of State Seward from meeting with the Confederate peace commission.

Other Years:

1862 - U.S. Major General Henry Halleck, Commander of the Department of the West, issued his notorious "Order Number Two." This order labeled all Confederate guerrillas as outlaws and required that they be executed immediately upon capture.
1864 - The first group of Navajos finished the "Long Walk" to Fort Sumner on the Bosque Redondo Reservation, in New Mexico. During the march, 13 of the 1,430 who started the trip were kidnapped by Mexicans several others died.
1868 - The impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson began in the United States Senate.
1869 - The Arkansas reconstruction legislature passed an anti-Ku Klux Klan law.
1925 - Tennessee passed a law against the teaching of evolution in public schools.
1997 - The Phoenix lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television. They are still a hotly-debated UFO controversy.

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12 March 2017

The Southern Manifesto

12 March 1956

On this date in 1956...

Eighty-two Southern Representatives and nineteen Southern Senators issued the Southern Manifesto in Congress to admonish the U.S. Supreme Court for "clear abuse of judicial power," and to protest federal meddling in local matters.

The Southern Manifesto Text

Other Years:

1848 – Cherokee Chief Tahchee, one of the original Cherokee settlers to move west, died in Indian Territory.
1863 - President Jefferson Davis delivered his State of the Confederacy address.
1865 - The Battle of Lone Jack, Missouri.
1884 - Mississippi established the first state-owned womens’ college in the U.S., the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College.
1894 - Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time at the Biedenharn Candy Company in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
1912 - Juliet Gordon Low founded the Girl Guides (now the Girl Scouts of America) in Savannah, Georgia.
1981 - Walter Witschey installed the world's largest analemmatic sundial at Richmond, Virginia.
1993 - Janet Reno of Florid was sworn in as the first female U.S. attorney general.

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