American Lives

Americans in History: January 23

1735: Thomas Mouse wrote a letter to Gen James Oglethorpe: "It being very hard for a man who has a large family to watch continually every third or fourth night, and, for refusing one night, I have been tied neck and heels by Mr Dalmas our Tythingman. I am very sorry I should deserve to be served in that manner..."

1762: In Texas, the mission of San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz was established on the Nueces River.

1812: The third in a series of major earthquakes rattled the New Madrid, MO, area.

1849: At Geneva, NY, Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree.

1862: Count Agoston Haraszthy imported 1,400 varieties of grapevines from Europe to California.

1863: At Fort Smith, Confederate officials hanged Federal guerrilla leader Capt Martin Hart, who was once a Texas senator.

1870: In the Baker Massacre, 173 friendly Piegans were slaughtered by US cavalry troops on the Marias River in Montana.

1882: The California Southern Railroad line through the treacherous granite walls of Temecula Canyon was completed.

1936: Haywood Patterson was convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison in the Scottsboro Boys case.

1942: The oiler USS Neches was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese sub off the Hawaiian Islands; 57 crew members were killed.

1953: Fighter pilot Ed Heller was shot down over Manchuria, where he was held prisoner for over two years.

1957: Ku Klux Klan members kidnapped Willie Edwards, a black truck driver; his body was found months later in the Alabama River.

1967: Pilot Barry Bridger and co-pilot David Gray were taken prisoner after their F-4 Phantom was hit by a surface-to-air missile over North Vietnam.

1968: North Korea seized the US Navy intelligence ship USS Pueblo, holding 83 crew members in custody for 11 months.

Egghead 10:17 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 22

1677: Following Bacon's Rebellion, royal governor Sir William Berkeley returned to Green Spring, where he oversaw the confiscation of rebels' property.

1731: John Law's failed Company of the Indies returned control of the Louisiana Territory to the king of France.

1740: Gen James Oglethorpe wrote a letter to the Duke of Newcastle reporting the Georgia colonists' hostilities with the inhabitants of Spanish Florida.

1793: Chickamauga leader Doublehead killed Indian fighter Capt William Overall and another man at Drippings Springs, KY, and ate them.

1813: The Kentuckians were surprised by British and Indian forces at Frenchtown on the Raisin River in Michigan.

1814: Gen Andrew Jackson marched 850 green troops into Creek territory, where they engaged the Red Sticks in the Battle of Emuckfau.

1870: Col David Coleman was fatally shot by masked riders during a crime wave in Carroll County, TN.

1877: During the Horrell-Higgins feud, Merritt Horrell was shot to death in a saloon at Lampasas, TX.

1879: A group of Dull Knife's Northern Cheyenne, on the run from Fort Robinson, were attacked by US cavalry forces in northwestern Nebraska.

1884: Workers on the Northern Pacific Railroad completed the Bozeman Pass tunnel in Montana.

1899: The Pope warned the head of the Catholic Church in the US against the "phantom heresy" of Americanism.

1899: The Divine Science Association and the Kansas Spiritualists Association objected to legislation that would require all healers to pass a state exam.

1907: The American premiere of Salome, an opera by Richard Strauss, shocked its New York audience.

1912: The first train arrived in Key West following the completion of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway.

1944: In Italy, US and Allied troops began landing on the beaches at Anzio and Nettuno in Operation Shingle; by the end of the day, 36,000 men had been deployed with only 13 lost.

1953: Peking radio announced the capture of Col John Knox Arnold and his surviving crew members after their B-29 bomber was shot down in China.

1957: George Metesky was arrested for planting numerous bombs in public places over 16 years; he told the NY Journal-American: "One thing I can’t understand is why the newspapers labeled me the Mad Bomber. That was unkind."

1966: A US Navy S2D took off to investigate an unidentified aircraft and vanished off the North Vietnamese coast with four crewmen aboard.

1968: Lt Lance Sijan was killed in captivity at Hanoi; he had evaded capture for 46 days before being taken prisoner.

1991: Col David Eberly and navigator Thomas Griffith were captured several days after being shot down on the Syrian border.

Egghead 10:10 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 21

1599: Juan de Ońate's nephew, Capt Vicente de Zaldívar, led Spanish troops to the Acoma Pueblo, seeking revenge for the death of his brother.

1634: Privateer John Stone was killed on the Connecticut River by Western Niantics, a Pequot tribe.

1648: Margaret Brent, niece of Lord Baltimore, demanded two votes in the Maryland Assembly, one for herself as a freeholder and one as her uncle's attorney.

1674: In an attempt to discredit Iroquois medicine men, Father Pierre Millet, a Jesuit priest, used an almanac to predict an eclipse.

1677: The first medical publication in America was a pamphlet on smallpox, published in Boston during its first epidemic.

1754: George Washington was ordered to raise a force of Virginians to join with Capt William Trent's traders in building an Ohio Company fort near Pittsburgh.

1764: The last Spanish ship left St Augustine, as the British took control of Florida.

1775: Several men admitted to the Wilmington Safety Committee that they had brought "sundry negroes" into North Carolina despite the Non-Importation Agreement.

1812: The Astorians, led by Wilson Price Hunt, finally arrived at the banks of the Columbia River.

1867: An overeager San Francisco patrol officer caused civic uproar when he arrested Emperor Norton I for involuntary treatment of a mental disorder.

1872: Grand Duke Alexis of Russia continued buffalo hunting near Kit Carson, CO, kissing Gen George Custer in excitement over his first kill of the day.

1874: After a group of Utah prospectors led by Alfred Packer were found starving by Uncompahgre Utes near Montrose, CO, Ouray invited them to spend the winter at his lodge.

1919: A New York City police inspector testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating German links to American brewers, due to anti-German hysteria during the war.

1919: The State Board of Health recorded 5,547 deaths in Kansas due to influenza during the past three months.

1938: Emma Tenayuca led pecan shellers on a labor strike in San Antonio.

1942: Pinball machines were banned in New York City, and remained illegal there until 1976.

1945: Over 300 B-17 bombers were dispatched to Aschaffenburg and Mannheim; on their return, two bombers collided in mid-air and crashed near Tilbury, England, killing 18 men.

1945: In the Pacific, kamikazes and aerial bombs hit the USS Ticonderoga, the USS Maddox and the USS Langley, while an accidental explosion of bombs carried by a TBM Avenger damaged the USS Hancock.

1968: A Huey helicopter was hit by ground fire upon landing at Lang Vei, leaving several crewmen dead or injured; two managed to evade NVA forces and walked 25 miles to Khe Sanh.

1968: A barrage of shells, mortars and rockets slammed into the USMC base at Khe Sanh; 18 Marines were killed and 40 wounded as the siege began.

Egghead 10:38 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 20

1620: The Virginia Company dissolved its financially-embarrassed supply monopoly, the Magazine, opening the colony to free trade.

1637: Boston clergyman John Wheelwright preached a sermon supporting the ideas of Anne Hutchinson, and was later banished from the colony.

1663: Nathaniel and Rebecca Greensmith were hanged in Hartford, CT, accused of witchcraft.

1672: In a letter to the proprietors, the secretary of the colony of Charles Town reported that its population included 263 men able to bear arms, 69 women and 59 children.

1692: In Salem, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams began experiencing fits of screaming, seizures, trancelike states and other strange behavior.

1716: Jean Baptiste le Moyne wrote that he had displeased Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, French governor of Louisiana, by refusing to marry his daughter.

1781: After a second mutiny, this time by the New Jersey militia, Gen George Washington urged severe measures.

1785: Samuel Ellis tried to sell a piece of property called Oyster Island in New York Harbor but there were apparently no takers; it later became famous as Ellis Island.

1809: The first geological map of the US was published by William Maclure.

1861: Mississippi troops took Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island near Biloxi.

1862: The Stone Fleet, loaded with New England granite, sailed from Port Royal, SC, to be sunk at Charleston to help enforce the Union blockade.

1863: In the Mud March, Gen Ambrose Burnside's Union forces began wading through seemingly endless rain and muck.

1865: The blockade runner City of Richmond anchored in Quiberon Bay, France, to await the arrival of the CSS Stonewall, which a Confederate officer described as "a vessel more formidable than any we have yet afloat..."

1867: Julia Bulette, a prostitute and philanthropist in Virginia City, NV, was found murdered in her home; 16 carriages full of the town's leading citizens followed her funeral procession to the cemetery.

1890: Passengers on a Southern Pacific train were robbed near Goshen, CA, allegedly by Chris Evans and John Sontag.

1908: The Sullivan Ordinance barred women from smoking in public in New York City.

1944: In Italy, US forces began crossing the Rapido River in what the Texas Division labeled a "two-day nightmare."

1945: P-51 fighter pilot Lt Edward Haydon was shot down by German jet aircraft near the Lechfeld airbase.

1956: During a speech in Atlanta, Branch Rickey described the problems he faced after his decision to integrate the Brooklyn Dodgers by signing Jackie Robinson.

1968: The 3rd Battalion of the 26th Marines attacked an NVA force near Hill 881 South; seven were KIA.

Egghead 10:39 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 19

1770: Tensions in New York between local patriots and British soldiers erupted into violence as the Sons of Liberty engaged British soldiers in the Battle of Golden Hill.

1782: Gen Anthony Wayne arrived in Georgia with orders to run the British out of Savannah.

1810: On Cold Friday in Woburn, MA, Benjamin Brooks and his cousin went out to cut wood and froze to death.

1822: Mobile businessman John Simonton bought Key West from Juan Pablo Salas, who had acquired it under a Spanish land grant.

1836: Jim Bowie arrived at the Alamo, ordered to destroy it and move the forces there to another location.

1847: During the Taos Rebellion against US rule, New Mexico Gov Charles Bent was killed and scalped in front of his terrified family.

1861: Federal forces occupied Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.

1862: In Kentucky, Confederate Gen Felix Zollicoffer was killed in the Battle of Mill Springs after he mistook the Yankee force for his own and rode in shouting: "Those are our men! We must not fire on our own men!"

1878: At Seville, OH, Anna Swan Bates, who was 7'3" tall, gave birth to the biggest baby ever born, but he only lived a few hours.

1891: The Rio Grande Railroad was robbed of over $60,000 by bandits near Brownsville, TX.

1896: Robert Parker, aka Butch Cassidy, was released from the Wyoming state prison and headed straight to an outlaw hideout called Hole in the Wall.

1914: Labor leader Joe Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City, charged with the deaths of a grocer and his son in a robbery.

1915: William Sanger was arrested for circulating a copy of his wife's pamphlet, "Family Limitation."

1934: Kenesaw Mountain Landis denied Shoeless Joe Jackson's appeal for reinstatement to major league baseball.

1942: The unarmed steamship City of Atlanta was torpedoed and sunk by a German sub off the North Carolina coast, with only three survivors of the 46-man crew.

1942: Nisei members of the Hawaii Territorial Guard were summarily discharged and classified as 4-C, enemy aliens.

1952: A DC-4 carrying troops home from Korea crashed into the Pacific, killing 36; three more men died when an SB-17 sent to search for survivors crashed in Washington's Olympic National Park.

1968: Pfc Michael Halpin was among several Bobcats killed while escorting a convoy through the Ben Cui rubber plantation.

1968: The Lower Elwha band, after decades of struggle, was finally allotted reservation land on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

Egghead 10:33 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 18

1676: Joshua Tefft was executed in Rhode Island, convicted of high treason during King Philip's War.

1776: In Georgia, royal governor James Wright was arrested and his associates were disarmed.

1813: About 700 Kentuckians captured Frenchtown, a British supply post on the River Raisin in Michigan.

1854: Filibuster William Walker proclaimed the Republic of Sonora in Mexico.

1861: In Pensacola, Lt Adam Slemmer refused to surrender Fort Pickens.

1863: In camp near Falmouth, VA, a soldier noted in his diary: "A fellow...was drummed out of the service for desertion...The buttons were all cut off his overcoat. He was then branded with the letter D on the hip, and marched up and down the rank of the whole Brigade to the tune of the rogues march."

1864: The trial of several men for the murder of Lloyd Magruder began in Lewiston, ID.

1878: Cattleman John Tunstall wrote to the Mesilla Independent, charging fraud by Sheriff William Brady and JJ Dolan & Company related to Tunstall's alleged failure to pay taxes.

1888: The Moosa Canyon gunfight took place near Oceanside, CA, leaving four people dead over land none of them owned.

1911: The first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place when pilot Eugene Ely landed on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.

1942: The tanker Allan Jackson was torpedoed and sunk off Cape Hatteras, with 22 lives lost.

1953: A US Navy P2V Neptune, with a crew of 13, was shot down by Chinese shore batteries in the Formosa Straits; 11 crewmen were rescued by a Coast Guard plane, which crashed on takeoff and killed four of the rescued men and five rescuers.

1958: Lumbee Indians drove the Ku Klux Klan off their land in Maxton, NC.

1967: Cpl Michael Scanlon was killed by an NVA grenade, the first American to die at Khe Sanh.

1968: Capt Robert Hinckley, Lt Robert Jones and Capt Wayne Smith were shot down over North Vietnam, while Col Ken Simonet went down near Hanoi; all were taken prisoner and released in 1973.

1968: Sgt Gordon Yntema earned the Medal of Honor when two CIDG platoons with US Special Forces advisors engaged the enemy in a fire fight east of Thong Binh.

1991: Lt Robert Wetzel and weapons system operator Jeffrey Zaun were shot down over Iraq, where they were taken prisoner; another A6 Intruder was shot down with two crew members killed.

Egghead 9:37 AM - [Link]
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