American Lives
True tales of life, death and other adventures in US historyduring the past 500+ years, specializing in lesser-known stories of real people coping with life under
extraordinary circumstances, often in their own words.
Saturday, January 03, 2004
Americans in History: January 3
Friday, January 02, 2004
1541: During his winter encampment in Tennessee, Hernando de Soto obtained guides and interpreters from the Chickasaw.
1624: William Tucker, the first recorded black child born in the colonies, was baptized at Jamestown.
1781: Gen Henry Clinton learned about the mutiny of the Pennsylvania militia and sent his agents to Princeton to invite the mutineers to join the British army.
1825: Scottish factory owner Robert Owen bought 30,000 acres of land in Indiana for the experimental community he established there, called New Harmony.
1867: Gen Joseph Kiddoo of the Freedmen's Bureau declared Texas Contract Law, one of the Reconstruction-era Black Codes, biased and prevented its enforcement.
1931: In the England Food Riot, destitute Arkansas farmers, many armed, threatened to take food from local stores unless it was provided from some other source.
1944: Explosions ripped through the destroyer USS Turner, which sank in New York Harbor; 138 of the sailors on board were killed.
1945: US Navy fighter pilot Minos Miller was shot down and taken prisoner on the coast of Formosa.
1961: The explosion of a nuclear reactor at Idaho Falls killed three workers.
1966: Samuel Younge was shot to death in a dispute over segregated restrooms in Tuskeegee, the sixth civil rights worker to be killed in Alabama within a year.
Egghead 10:40 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 2
1766: Royal governor James Wright turned back the Sons of Liberty, outraged over the Stamp Act, at the gates of his Georgia mansion.
1791: A Delaware and Wyandot war party attacked Ohio Company settlers at Big Bottom.
1806: A member of the Lewis & Clark expedition, wintering at Fort Clatsop, wrote: "We are infested with swarms of flees already...the presumption is therefore strong that we shall not divest ourselves of this troublesem vermin during our residence here."
1842: The Fairmount Park Bridge in Philadelphia was the first successful wire suspension bridge built in the US, engineered by Charles Ellet.
1864: Gen Patrick Cleburne of the Confederate Army of Tennessee proposed enlisting slaves for military service in exchange for their freedom; CSA leaders rejected the suggestion.
1869: Sixty masked riders tried to burn a black school in Shelbyville, TN, but the students fought back, killing one rider and wounding three.
1877: American brigand Capt Bully Hayes left "golden Apia, his best-loved port in the Pacific" on his last voyage to Kosrae.
1967: Armed Haitians, Cubans and Americans, along with a CBS camera crew, were arrested in the Florida Keys as they prepared to invade Haiti in Project Nassau.
1967: In Operation Bolo, led by WWII and Korean War vets Robin Olds and Chappie James, seven MiGs were shot down in 11 minutes, about half the North's operational inventory.
1991: Two US Army pilots were summarily executed after FMLN guerrillas shot down their helicopter in El Salvador; a third died in the crash.
Egghead 12:25 PM - [Link]
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Americans in History: January 1
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
1753: New Year's Day was celebrated on January 1 in the American colonies for the first time after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar; March 25 had marked the beginning of the new year before then.
1853: In Cincinnati, the first practical horse-drawn steam fire engine, designed by Alexander Bonnet Latta, revolutionized fire fighting.
1892: Annie Moore, a 15-year old Irish girl, was the first of more than 12 million people who entered the US through the immigration center at Ellis Island.
1914: The governor of Oregon sent his secretary, Miss Fern Hobbs, to the mining town of Copperfield to close down the saloons, where she found the entire town lined up to greet her, the streets decked with bunting and the saloons trimmed with ribbons and flowers.
1920: In the Palmer Raids, during America’s first Red Scare, over 6,000 people were arrested without being charged with any crime.
1934: Dr Francis Townsend began promoting an old-age pension plan.
1943: A German sub sank the US freighter Arthur Middleton off Oran, Algeria; there were only three survivors.
1945: Two weeks after the massacre of 84 American POWs at Malmedy, US troops machine-gunned 60 German POWs in their custody at Chenogne.
1968: In the battle of Fire Support Base Burt, 23 US troops were killed and 153 wounded.
1969: SP4 James Brigham was among several POWs returned to US control, but he had suffered a serious head injury and soon died; Sgt Rodney Yano earned the Medal of Honor when a phosphorus grenade exploded aboard his helicopter near Bien Hao.
Egghead 10:39 AM - [Link]
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Americans in History: December 31
1755: Following his victory against the French in the Battle of Lake George, Sir William Johnson learned he had been made a baronet by George II.
1758: George Washington retired from the colonial army at age 26 after more than five years of service.
1775: Gen Richard Montgomery was killed and Gen Benedict Arnold wounded while leading a disastrous assault on Quebec.
1776: New England state delegates meeting at Providence, RI, recommended federal wage and price controls in hopes of curbing inflation.
1781: The Bank of North America was chartered in Philadelphia, the first modern bank in the US.
1813: British and Indian forces captured Buffalo, NY, and burned it down.
1831: Queen Ka'ahumanu expelled Catholic priests from the Hawaiian Islands after discord developed between French priests, American Protestant missionaries and local residents.
1835: The Battle of Withlachoochee took place in Florida during the Second Seminole War.
1837: Amasa Parker wrote a letter to his wife from Washington, DC, describing the boarding house where he and two future presidents lived.
1838: The first group of German Lutheran immigrants, sailing from Bremen aboard five ships, arrived at New Orleans; one of the ships and all aboard had been lost at sea.
Egghead 3:54 PM - [Link]
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