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This Day in Alabama History |
1926: Jazz musician Urbie Green was born in Mobile.
1922: Hattie Hooker Wilkins of Selma becomes the first woman to win a seat in the Alabama legislature. One of three Alabama women to run for legislative office that year, Wilkins was the only successful candidate, beating out incumbent J. W. Green for a seat in the House of Representatives. Wilkins served only one term, choosing not to run for re-election in 1926.
Source: Bhamwiki, Alabama Department of Archives and History
1882: Isaac “Honest Ike” Vincent is elected to an unprecedented third term as State Treasurer. Vincent promised that he would “endeavor in the future, as I have in the past, to guard and advance your interests as faithfully as I would my own.” On January 31, 1883, Gov. Edward A. O’Neal reported to the Legislature that Treasurer Vincent had absconded from office and that state funds totaling more than $200,000 were missing.
1946: Lt. Gen. Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith retires from the Marines after a forty-year career. A veteran of World Wars I and II, the Russell County native became known as “the father of amphibious warfare,” and was honored for his years of service by being retired as a full general.
1864: The Battle of Mobile Bay begins. U.S. Admiral David Farragut, with a force of fourteen wooden ships, four ironclads, 2,700 men, and 197 guns, assaulted greatly outnumbered Confederate defenses guarding the approach to Mobile Bay. Farragut’s victory removed Mobile as a center of blockade-running and freed Union troops for service in Virginia.
1890: Inventor and emancipated slave Andrew Beard was granted Patent No. 433,847 for his rotary engine invention.
1917: Members of the Alabama National Guard Brigade, are discharged from guard service so that they can be drafted into the regular army. Once drafted, the guardsmen were assigned to their former units, and one of these, the 4th Alabama, would become the 167th U.S. Infantry Regiment and serve with distinction in France during World War I as a part of the famed 42nd “Rainbow” Division.
2006: Matilda, the Bessemer hen who held the Guinness Book of World Records title holder for “World’s Oldest Chicken” was memorialized at a special “broken perch” ceremony during the annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Magicians, held at the Hilton Perimeter Park.
Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Bhamwiki
1887: Kelly Ingram, the first American sailor to die in World War I, was born in Pratt City.
1889: Brother Bryan was installed as Third Presbyterian Church’s first permanent pastor.
1911: Businessman and entrepreneur Elton B. Stephens was born.
Source: Bhamwiki
1936: Lawrence County native Jesse Owens wins his first gold medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Owens went on to win four gold medals in Berlin, but German leader Adolf Hitler snubbed the star athlete because he was black. Today visitors can learn more about Owens at the Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum in Oakville, Alabama.
1948: Jazz musician Ray Reach was born in Birmingham.
Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Bhamwiki
1819: The first Alabama constitution is adopted, paving the way to statehood in December. Known today as the Constitution of 1819, to distinguish it from five subsequent constitutions. It was considered a model of democracy at the time. It granted, for example, suffrage to all adult white males without regard to property ownership or other qualifications.
1704: French colonists in Mobile welcome the “Pelican Girls,” twenty-three young women from France who had crossed the Atlantic aboard the Pelican. The ladies had been recruited to move to the young settlement to marry the male settlers and naturally increase Mobile’s population.
1944: Roy Kracke assumed duties as the first dean of the Medical College of Alabama.
2001: Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has a Ten Commandments monument installed in the Supreme Court’s offices. This lead to a long political battle, his removal from office and removal of the monument.
Sources: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Bhamwiki
1942: Alabama native Cornelius Paul was among the sailors killed when the USS Grunion was sunk by the Japanese during World War II.
1946: NASCAR driver Neil Bonnett was born.
Source: Bhamwiki
1813: The first engagment of the Creek Indian War of 1813-1814 takes place at Burnt Corn Creek in present-day Escambia County, Alabama. Creek leaders Peter McQueen and High Head Jim were returning from Pensacola, where they had secured supplies and arms from the Spanish and British, when they were attacked by American forces.
1863: William Lowndes Yancey dies at his home near Montgomery at the age of 48. The main author of Alabama’s ordinance of secession, which removed Alabama from the Union, Yancey was one of the leading “fire-eaters” who influenced southern states to secede.
Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History
1914: Erskine Hawkins, famed jazz musician, is born in Birmingham. His band, the ‘Bama State Collegians, became the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra in the late 1930s after gaining a following in New York and winning a recording contract with RCA Victor. The band’s biggest hit was the immensely popular “Tuxedo Junction” (1940).
1959: Journalist, Rick Bragg, was born in Piedmont.
1914: Erskine Hawkins, famed jazz musician, is born in Birmingham. His band, the ‘Bama State Collegians, became the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra in the late 1930s after gaining a following in New York and winning a recording contract with RCA Victor. The band’s biggest hit was the immensely popular “Tuxedo Junction” (1940).
1958: Truck racer, Rick Crawford, was born in Mobile.
1868: For the first time since 1861, Alabama’s two U.S. senators take their seats in Congress, thus signifying Alabama’s readmission to the Union. “Carpetbaggers” George E. Spencer and Willard Warner, both natives of northern states, served as Republicans.
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