Timeline Alabama
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ADAH: http://www.archives.state.al.us/
Alabama History: http://www.archives.state.al.us/timeline/index.html
Alabama Through the Ages: http://www.asc.edu/archives/timeline/timefr.html
IPH: http://ipih.org/state/al.html
Alabama is about the same size as Greece.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
The Choctaw phrase "Alba Ayamule" translates as
"I open the thicket" and is the listed origin of the state's name.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.D4)
77 Million BP In 2005 it was
reported that paleontologists had identified a new dinosaur species, an
early relative of Tyrannosaurus rex that roamed what is now the
Southeastern US about this time. The scientists made the identification
from hundreds of fossilized fragments collected mostly in Montgomery
County, Ala., and southwestern Georgia. They named the new dinosaur
Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis, which means "the Appalachian lizard
from Montgomery County." The 25-foot-long creature roamed the earth 10
million years before T. rex and was smaller and more primitive, with a
narrower snout.
(AP, 4/16/05)
1540 Oct 19, Hernando de Soto
fought native Indians at the bloody battle of Mabila in present day
Alabama.
(WSJ, 8/5/05,
p.W2)(www.floridahistory.com/inset91.html)
1807 Feb 19, Former Vice President
Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. He was subsequently tried for
treason and acquitted. [see May 22, Sep 1]
(HN, 2/19/98)(AP, 2/19/98)
1813 Apr 15, U.S. troops under
James Wilkinson sieged the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state
of Alabama.
(HN, 4/15/99)
1813 Aug 30, Creek Indians
massacred over 500 whites at Fort Mims Alabama.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1813 Nov 3, American troops
destroy the Indian village of Tallushatchee in the Mississippi Valley.
US troops under Gen Coffee destroyed an Indian village at Talladega,
Ala.
(HN, 11/3/99)(MC, 11/3/01)
1814 Mar 27, General Jackson led
U.S. soldiers who killed 700 Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, La. [in
Northern Alabama] Jackson lost 49 men. In 2001 John Buchanon authored
"Jackson’s Way" and Robert V. Remini authored "Andrew Jackson and His
Indian Wars."
(SFEC, 2/16/97, BR p.4)(HN, 3/27/99)(WSJ, 7/26/01,
p.A12)
1814 Mar 29, In the Battle at
Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, Andrew Jackson beat the Creek Indians. [see
Mar 27]
(MC, 3/29/02)
1817 Mar 3, Mississippi Territory
was divided into Alabama Territory and Mississippi.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1819 Dec 14, Alabama was admitted
as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
(AP, 12/14/97)(HN, 12/14/98)
1821 Jul 6, Edmund Pettus
(d.1907), for whom the civil rights landmark Edmund Pettus Bridge was
named, was born in Alabama. He earned his fame as a Confederate
brigadier general. Pettus was a lawyer and judge and served throughout
the western theater during the Civil War. He resumed his law practice
after the war and went on to serve in the U.S. Senate. Pettus died
while in his second term in Congress. The Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Alabama, became a civil rights landmark when on March 7, 1965, a
band of civil rights marchers on their way to Montgomery crossed the
bridge, only to be attacked by state troopers on the other side.
(HNQ, 10/21/01)
1841 Dec 31, Alabama became the
1st state to license dental surgeons.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1845 Henry Lehman, an immigrant
from Germany, opened a dry goods store in Montgomery, Alabama. He was
joined by his two brothers in 1850. The family often accepted raw
cotton instead of cash for merchandise, which resulted in a successful
cotton business on the side. In 1862, the brothers formed Lehman, Durr
& Co. with cotton merchant John Durr, and in 1870, helped to form
the New York Cotton Exchange.
(www.publicbonds.org/major_players/lehman.htm)
1860 Nov, Abraham Lincoln won the
US presidential elections with a majority of the electoral votes in a
4-way race. Following his election South Carolina seceded from the
Union followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and
Texas.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A13)
1861 Jan 5, Alabama troops seized
Forts Morgan & Gaines at Mobile Bay.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1861 Jan 11, Alabama became the
4th state to secede from the Union.
(AP, 1/11/98)(HN, 1/11/99)
1861 Feb 4, Delegates from six
southern states met in Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States
of America. They included Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana and Texas. They elected Jefferson Davis as president of
Confederacy.
(AP, 2/4/97)(ON, 11/00, p.1)
1861 Feb 8, Delegates from seceded
states adopted a provisional Confederate Constitution in Montgomery,
Ala.
(HN, 2/7/97)(MC, 2/8/02)
1861 Feb 9, The Confederate
Provisional Congress, meeting in Alabama, declared all laws under the
US Constitution were consistent with constitution of Confederate
states. The Congress elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as
president and Alexander H. Stephens vice president. Jefferson Davis'
Mexican War exploits led him to the Confederate White House. In 2001
William C. Davis authored "The Union That Shaped the Confederacy:
Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens."
(HN, 2/9/97)(AP, 2/9/99)(WSJ, 6/13/01, p.A18)(AH,
2/06, p.15)
1861 Feb 18, Jefferson F. Davis
was inaugurated as the Confederacy’s provisional president at a
ceremony held in Montgomery, Ala., where the Confederate constitutional
convention was held. Davis was sworn in on Feb 22 in Virginia.
(AP, 2/18/98)(HN, 2/18/98)(AH, 10/04, p.60)
1861 Mar 11, The Confederate
convention in Montgomery, Ala., adopted a constitution.
(AP, 3/11/98)(HN, 3/11/98)
1861 May 21, The Confederate
Congress, meeting in Montgomery, Ala., voted to move the capital of the
Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, Va.
(AP, 5/21/07)
1862 Oct 2, An Army under Union
General Joseph Hooker arrived in Bridgeport, Alabama to support the
Union forces at Chattanooga.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1862 The US battleship Monticello
crashed trying to get past the US Navy and into Mobile Bay during the
Civil War after sailing from Havana. In 1969 Hurricane Camille
uncovered wreckage near Fort Morgan, Alabama, that some believed to be
the Monticello, though others thought it was a schooner that ran
aground in 1933.
(AP, 9/20/08)
1863 Apr 27, Battle of Streight's
raid: Tuscumbia to Cedar Bluff, AL.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1863 Jul 27, William Lowndes
Yancey (b.1814), former Alabama state senator, and advocate of states’
rights and slavery, died at his home near in Montgomery, Alabama. In
2006 Eric H. Walther authored “William Lowndes Yancey and the Coming of
the Civil War.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowndes_Yancey)
1864 Feb 16, Battle of Mobile,
Al., operations by Union Army.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1864 Aug 3, Federal gunboats
attacked but did not capture Fort Gains, at the mouth of Mobile Bay,
Alabama.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1864 Aug 4, Federal troops fail to
capture Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, one of the Confederate forts
defending Mobile Bay. [see Aug 3]
(HN, 8/4/99)
1864 Aug 5, During the Civil War,
Union Adm. David G. Farragut is said to have given his famous order,
"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" as he led his fleet against
Mobile Bay, Ala. The Union Navy captured Mobile Bay in Alabama.
(AP, 8/5/97)(HN, 8/5/98)
1864 Aug 6, Rebels evacuated Ft.
Powell, Mobile Bay.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1864 Aug 8, Union troops and fleet
occupied Fort Gaines, Alabama.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1864 Aug 23, Union troops and
fleet occupied Fort Morgan, Alabama.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1864 Sep 4, Bread riots took place
in Mobile, Alabama.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1864 Sep 16, Confederate General
Nathan Bedford Forrest led 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss., to harass
Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1864 Oct 25, Skirmishes took place
at Mine Creek, Ka., and Turkeytown, Al.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1864 Nov 19, Confederate commander
Nathan Bedford Forrest joined Gen. Hood at Gunter’s Landing on the
Tennessee River in northern Alabama.
(AH, 10/02, p.41)
1864 Nov 21, Confederate General
John Bell Hood launched the Franklin-Nashville Campaign into Tennessee
from northern Alabama. Hood led the Army of the Tennessee in its
offensive into Tennessee, which was decisively broken in the battles of
Franklin and Nashville. Hood, a graduate of West Point, had been in the
U.S. Cavalry until the Civil War broke out. He was seriously wounded
attacking Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg and later
lost a leg at Chickamauga in September of that year. In 1864, he was
appointed a Lieutenant General under Joseph E. Johnston‘s command in
defense of Atlanta. In July, Confederate president Jefferson Davis put
Hood in command who promptly attacked Sherman‘s Union army and was
repulsed. Hood then attempted a long march to the north and west to
assault Sherman‘s rear and ran into Union Army of the Cumberland. The
November Battle of Franklin and December Battle of Nashville decisively
defeated Hood‘s Army which was harassed and almost destroyed in its
retreat. Hood‘s own request to end his command was granted the
following month. After the war he lived in New Orleans.
(HNQ,
11/4/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin-Nashville_Campaign)
1865 Mar 18, Battle of Wilson's
raid to Selma, AL.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1865 Mar 22, Raid at Wilson's:
Chickasaw, AL, to Macon, GA.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1865 Mar 25, Battle of Mobile, AL
(Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 27, Siege of Spanish
Fort, AL. It was captured by Federals.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1865 Apr 1-9, Battle at Blakely,
Alabama.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1865 Apr 2, Battle of Ft. Blakely,
AL. and Selma, AL.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1865 Apr 9, Federals captured Ft.
Blakely, Alabama.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1865 Apr 11, Battle of Mobile,
AL., evacuated by Confederates.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1865 Apr 14, Mobile, Alabama, was
captured.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1865 Apr 23, Union cavalry units
continued to skirmish with Confederate forces in Henderson, North
Carolina and Munsford Station, Alabama.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1865 May 4, Battle of Mobile, AL.
[see Apr 11,14]
(MC, 5/4/02)
1866 Apr 2, Pres. ended war in
Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Ten & Va.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1867 Apr 1, Blacks voted in
the municipal election in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
(OTD)
1868 Feb 24, The 1st US parade
with floats was at the Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1868 Jun 25, Florida, Alabama,
Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were re-admitted
to the Union.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1873 Nov 16, William Christopher
Handy, W.C. Handy, father of the blues famous for "St. Louis Blues,"
was born in Alabama.
(HN, 11/16/98)(MC, 11/16/01)
1881 Jul 4, In Alabama Tuskegee
Institute enrolled 30 students. It was founded by former slave Booker
T. Washington as a "normal" school and industrial institute where
"colored" people with little or no formal schooling could be trained as
teachers and skilled workers.
(NH, 2/97, p.82)(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A22)(IB, Internet,
12/7/98)
1884 Feb 19, A series of tornadoes
left an estimated 800 people dead in 7 US states (Miss, Ala, NC, SC,
Tenn., Ky & In).
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(MC, 2/19/02)
1886 Feb 27, Hugo L. Black was
born in Alabama. He became the 78th Supreme Court Justice (1937-71) and
wrote opinions forbidding prayer in schools (Sen-D-Ala).
(HN, 2/27/99)(MC, 2/27/02)
1887 Mar 3, Anne Mansfield
Sullivan arrived at the Alabama home of Capt. and Mrs. Arthur H. Keller
to become the teacher of Helen, their blind and deaf 6-year-old
daughter.
(AP, 3/3/00)
1887 Apr 5, In Tuscumbia, Ala.,
teacher Anne Sullivan taught her blind and deaf pupil, Helen Keller,
the meaning of the word "water" as spelled out in the manual alphabet.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1894 Jul 16, Many negro miners in
Alabama were killed by striking white miners.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1898 Sep 10, Waldo Lonsbury Semon
(d.1999 at 100) was born in Demopolis. He later became a chemist for
B.F. Goodrich and invented polyvinyl chloride in 1928. He received a
patent for PVC in 1933. In 1940 he invented the synthetic rubber named
Ameripol.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A23)
1901 The Alabama state
constitution was enacted to reverse gains made by blacks after the
Civil War. It included a prohibition on marriages between blacks and
whites. In 1999 steps were taken to repeal the ban.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A11)(SFC, 4/17/99, p.A4)(WSJ,
4/3/02, p.A1)
1905 Mary Anderson of Alabama
received a patent for a streetcar windshield wiper. Her effort was the
result of a trip to NYC in 1903 where she watched drivers coping with
the weather.
(WSJ, 5/9/05, p.R10)
1910 Tennessee passed a
Prohibition law that gave distillers one year to dismantle their
operations. George Dickel's operations moved to Kentucky and Jack
Daniel's to Missouri and Alabama. Prohibition knocked both out of
business in 1920.
(SFC, 2/04/04, p.D2)
1913 Feb 14, Mel Allen,
sportscaster (voice of NY Yankees), was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1913 In Alabama a white man was
executed for murdering a black man.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A3)
1914 May 13, Joe Louis, world
heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, was born in Lafayette,
Ala. His boxing record was 63-3 with 49 knock-outs.
(AP, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/99)
1914 Oct 28, Fayard Nicholas
(d.2006), the elder half of the Nicholas Brothers tap dancing duo, was
born in Mobile, Ala.
(SSFC, 1/29/06,
p.B7)(news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article341244.ece)
1915 Nov 14, Booker T. Washington
(b.1856), Black American educator, died in Tuskegee, Alabama. The
former slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute (1881). Booker
Taliaferro Washington later became the 1st black on a US postage stamp.
His autobiography "Up From Slavery" was listed in 1999 as the 3rd best
work of non-fiction in the English language in the 20th century by the
Modern Library. In 2009 Robert J. Norrell authored “Up From History:
The Life of Booker T. Washington.”
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)(WSJ,
1/23/09, p.W10)
1915-1998 Margaret Walker Alexander, black author,
was born in Birmingham. She died Nov 30, 1998 at age 83. Her work
included the 1942 poem "For My People," and the 1966 novel "Jubilee."
(SFC, 12/1/98, p.B2)
1917 Flooding in Mobile, Ala.,
reached 11 feet.
(SFC, 8/31/05, p.A11)
1919 Aug 25, George C. Wallace,
governor of Alabama and presidential candidate who led the fight to
keep segregation in the South, was born in Clio, Ala.
(HN, 8/25/98)(MC, 8/25/02)
1920 Apr 20, Tornadoes struck
northern Alabama and Mississippi. The final Alabama death toll reached
92 people. As many as 219 people were reportedly killed.
(www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/significant_events/climate/top10.php)(SFC,
4/20/09, p.D8)
1921 Jun 19, Howell Heflin,
senator from Alabama, was born.
(HN, 6/19/98)
1922 The Ebenezer Baptist Church
in Atlanta was constructed. Martin Luther King Sr. became co-pastor in
1927. His son Martin Luther King Jr. became co-pastor in 1960.
(AH, 6/02, p.6)
1924 Aug 29, Dinah Washington
(d.1963), singer, was born as Ruth Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She
was known in the 50s as "Queen of the Harlem Blues."
(HN, 8/29/00)(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.M1)
1927 In Alabama and many other
states sheriffs and other county office holders were paid fixed fees
for services performed and were allowed to keep whatever was left over.
In 2008 all but 12 of Alabama’s 67 counties remained on the fee system
with a $1.75-a-day allowance for feeding prisoners. Some sheriffs still
profited with no accounting to auditors.
(SFC, 5/20/08, p.A4)
1930 Dec 31, Odetta, [Holmes],
folk singer (Sanctuary), was born in Birmingham, Ala.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1931 Mar 25, In Alabama 9 young
black men, arrested at Paint Rock after riding a freight train, were
taken to Scottsboro. Victoria Price (21) and Ruby Bates (17), who had
worked as prostitutes in Huntsville, were also found on the train
dressed as boys. The 9 men were soon charged with raping the 2 white
woman, while riding on the freight train.
(WSJ, 6/20/07,
p.A17)(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_chron.html)
1931 Mar 30, In Scottsboro, Ala.,
9 young black men were indicted for rape. By the end of April all were
tried, convicted and sentenced to death, except for one age 13, who was
sentenced to life in prison. The US Supreme Court later overturned the
convictions, but they were convicted at a 2nd trial, even though one of
the accused said no rape had occurred. The sentences were again
overturned.
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.A17)
1931 Apr 6, The 1st Scottsboro
(Ala) trial began for 9 blacks accused of rape.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_chron.html)
1932 The US government began its
40-year Tuskegee Syphilis Study on 623 black men in rural Macon County,
Ala. It ended in 1972 after Health Service investigator Peter Buxton
exposed the study's unethical procedures.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A27)
1934 Jul 18, Cotton-mill workers
in the US south went on strike. The UTW locals in the northern part of
Alabama launched a strike in Huntsville, Alabama, then spread to
Florence, Anniston, Gadsden, and Birmingham. While the strike was
popular, it was also ineffective: many employers welcomed it as a means
of cutting their expenses, since they had warehouses full of unsold
goods. A documentary called the "Uprising of ‘34" was made in 1995 and
scheduled for PBS on 6/27/95.
(WSJ, 6/13/95,
p.A-1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_workers_strike_%281934%29)
1934 Sep 9, Sonia Sanchez, poet,
was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
(HN, 9/9/00)
1935 Monsanto began producing PCB
in Indiana and Anniston, La. PCBs were banned in 1979. Tons of PCBs
were released into the environment and hidden from the public for over
40 years.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A7)
1937 Jul 2, Polly Holliday,
actress (Flo-Alice, Flo-Flo), was born in Jasper, Ala.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1937 Jul 24, The state of Alabama
dropped charges against 4 black men accused of raping two white women
in the so-called Scottsboro case.
(AP,
7/24/97)(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_chron.html)
1937 Aug 19, Hugo Black
(1886-1971), US Senator from Alabama, was sworn in as associate US
Supreme Court Justice.
(AP,
10/21/97)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/76/)
1939 Arthur Davis Shores became
the first black attorney licensed in Alabama.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.4)
1941 Jan, The US War Dept. formed
an all-black flying unit that achieved fame as the Tuskegee Airmen. On
June 20 the Tuskegee program officially began with the formation of the
99th Fighter Squadron at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Their 1st
mission was in June 1943. African-Americans were barred from the Air
Corps until this year, and then were shunted to all-black squadrons.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A24) (WSJ, 8/17/99, p.A1)(NPub,
2002, p.14)
1942 May 5, Tammy Wynette, country
singer (Stand by your Man), was born in Redbay, Alabama.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1943 Jan 5, George Washington
Carver, Educator and scientist, died at age 81 at Tuskegee, Alabama.
Carver was born the son of a slave woman in the early 1860s, went to
college in Iowa and then headed to Alabama in 1896. There, at the
Tuskegee Institute, Carver served as an agricultural chemist,
experimenter, teacher and administrator, working to improve life for
African Americans in the rural South by teaching them better
agricultural skills. One of the farming methods Carver devised, using
peanut and soybean crops to enrich soil depleted by cotton crops,
revolutionized Southern farming. Carver became somewhat of a benevolent
example of the potential of black intellectuals. He was well-respected
by people such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi,
Josef Stalin and Thomas Edison, whose offer of a job for more than $100
a year Carver refused. Carver worked at Tuskegee until his death.
(AP, 1/5/98)(HNPD, 1/5/99)
1943 May 25, There was a riot at
Mobile, Al., shipyard over upgrading 12 black workers.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1943 Jul 2, The U.S. Army Air
Corps 99th Fighter Squadron, the first of the all-black Tuskegee Airmen
to see combat, had been based in Africa for four months when they were
assigned to escort 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers on a routine mission over
Sicilian targets. Lieutenant Charles B. Hall of Brazil, Indiana became
the first Tuskegee Airman to score a confirmed kill when he shot down a
German fighter plane. The United States would not allow black airmen to
fight for their country until 1943, when the first of a contingent
trained at Tuskegee, Alabama, were formed as the 99th Fighter Squadron
and shipped out to North Africa. That unit and the 332nd Fighter Group
that followed (which comprised the 99th) would prove their worth in the
last two years of World War II. Besides establishing an outstanding
record for not losing a single bomber they escorted to enemy fighters,
several of the Tuskegee Airmen went on to distinguished postwar careers
in the U.S. Air Force.
(HNPD, 7/5/98)
1944 Feb 17, Oil was discovered in
commercial quantities in Alabama.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1944 Aug 10, Race riots took place
in Athens, Alabama.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1946 James E. Folsom, aka "Big
Jim," was elected as governor.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.B2)
1947-1963 The Louvin Brothers of Alabama, born Ira
and Charlie Loudermilk, recorded their country music, a mix of
bluegrass, gospel, blues and antique fold ballads. A boxed set of their
recordings called "Close Harmony" was put together by Richard Weize of
Bear Family Records, Hamburg, Germ.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W3)
1948 May 1, Glenn Taylor, Idaho
Senator, was arrested in Birmingham Alabama for trying to enter a
meeting through a door marked "for Negroes."
(MC, 5/1/02)
1949 George Wallace asked for and
received an appointment to the Board of Trustees of the Tuskegee
Institute.
(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A30)
1950 German scientists (118),
described as “prisoners of peace” began arriving in Huntsville,
Alabama, to work on the US space program.
(WSJ, 11/10/04, p.A1)
1951 Oct 25, Ransom Wilson,
flutist and conductor, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
(http://www.chambermusicsociety.org/artists/artist_detail.php?id=14)
1952 Aug 17, Kathryn C. Thornton,
PhD, astronaut, was born in Montgomery, Alabama.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1952 Dec 30, Tuskegee Institute
reported 1952 as the 1st yr in the last 71 with no US lynchings.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1953 Oct 8, Birmingham, Alabama,
barred Jackie Robinson's Negro-White All-Stars from playing there.
Robinson gave in and dropped white players from his group.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1954 Jun 18, Albert Patterson was
assassinated in Phenix, Ala. He had recently been elected as attorney
general on a platform to crack down on vice. His murder led the
governor to call in the National Guard to replace local law enforcement
and cleanup the vice. Patterson’s son John filled the attorney general
position and soon became the subject of the movie “The Phenix City
Story.” He was elected governor in 1958.
(USAT, 6/29/04, p.7A)
1954 Jul 4, WMSL (WYUR, now WAFF)
TV channel 48 in Huntsville, AL (ABC) began.
(Maggio)
1954 Nov 30, A meteorite struck
Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges of Alabama as she was sleeping on a couch. The
space rock was a sulfide meteorite weighing 8.5 pounds and measuring
seven inches in length. Mrs. Hodges was not permanently injured but
suffered a nasty bruise along her hip and leg. This was the 1st
modern report of a Meteorite striking a human.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1955 Mar 2, Claudette Colvin
refuses to give up her seat in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before
Rosa Parks' famous arrest for the same offense.
(HN, 3/2/00)
1955 Nov 3, An Alabama woman was
bruised by a meteor.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1955 Dec 1, Rosa Parks, a
42-year-old seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, was
arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, as she sat in a section of a bus just
behind the area reserved for whites. She refused to move to the back
the bus, to accommodate a white male passenger, as ordered by driver
James F. Blake (d.2002 at 89) and defied the South’s segregationist
laws. This prompted the Dec. 5 bus boycott, a year-long boycott of the
buses by blacks, and launched the Civil Rights movement in the United
States. Virginia Durr (d.1999 at 95) helped a black civil rights leader
bail Parks out of jail. In 1985 Durr wrote her memoir: "Outside the
Magic Circle." In 1999 Pres. Clinton authorized a Congressional Gold
Medal for Rosa Parks.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-6)(SFEC, 9/15/96,
p.A2)(SFEM, 2/2/97, p.8) (AP, 12/1/97)(HN, 12/1/98)(SFC, 3/10/99,
p.A23)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A24)
1956 Feb 3, Autherine Lucy
(b.1929) arrived at the Tuscaloosa branch of the Univ. of Alabama and
became the first black person to enroll there. She had been accepted in
1952 and then was denied because of her race.
(http://www.answers.com/topic/autherine-lucy-foster)
1956 Feb 6, The Univ. of Alabama
board of trustees voted to suspend Autherine Lucy, the 1st black
admitted to school, on the grounds that the campus was no longer safe
for her.
(http://www.answers.com/topic/autherine-lucy-foster)
1956 Feb 21, A Grand Jury in
Montgomery, Ala., indicted 115 in a Negro bus boycott.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1956 Feb 22, The US Montgomery
Boycott sparked arrests that included Martin Luther King. He was found
guilty on March 22 and ordered to pay a $500 fine.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(SFEM, 1/19/97, BR p.1)(Sm, 3/06,
p.44)
1956 Apr 11, Singer Nat Cole was
attacked on stage of Birmingham theater by whites.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1956 Nov 13, The U.S. Supreme
Court struck down the Alabama bus segregation law. The Supreme Court
struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.
(AP, 11/13/97)(HN, 11/13/98)
1956 Dec 20, The Supreme Court
affirmed the Jun 5 decision against segregation on buses in Montgomery,
Alabama. Montgomery removed race-based seat assignments on its buses.
(SFEM, 1/19/97, BR p.8)(SFEM, 2/2/97, p.12,13)(MC,
12/20/01)
1957 Jun 17, The Tuskegee boycott
began as Blacks boycotted city stores.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1957 Jul 17, Lila Bliss found her
daughter, Juliette Hampton Morgan (b.1914), dead next to an empty
bottle of sleeping pills. In 1936 Juliette had signed a pledge with
other women in Montgomery, Alabama, to no longer remain silent in the
face of crime done in their name. In 2007 Mary Stanton authored
“Journey Toward Justice,” a biography of Juliette Hampton Morgan.
(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.P13)
1958 Jun 29, A bomb exploded at
the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.; there were no injuries.
(AP, 6/29/08)
1958 Sep 5, Martin Luther King was
arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing
to obey police.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1958 George Wallace ran for
governor of Alabama but was defeated by John Patterson, a rabid racist
with ties to the Klan. Patterson was the son of lawyer Albert
Patterson, assassinated in 1954.
(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A30)(USAT, 6/29/04, p.7A)
1960 Feb 17, Martin Luther King
Jr. was arrested in the Alabama bus boycott.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1960 Mar 1, 1,000 Black students
prayed and sang the national anthem on the steps of the old Confederate
Capitol in Montgomery, Ala.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1960 Sep 8, NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., was dedicated by President Dwight D.
Eisenhower. This followed the activation of the facility in July of
that year, when a key element of the U.S. Army’s Ballistic Missile
Agency was transferred from the Department of Defense to NASA.
The Marshall Center is named in honor of General George C. Marshall,
who was the Army Chief of Staff during World War II, U.S. Secretary of
State, and a Nobel Prize winner for his post-World War II "Marshall
Plan."
(NASA PR, 8/22/00)
1961 May 14, Bus with 1st group of
Freedom Riders was bombed and burned in Alabama.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1961 May 20, A white mob led by
Claude Henley attacked a busload of "Freedom Riders" in Montgomery,
Ala., prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to
restore order.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A3)
1961 May 21, Governor Patterson
declared martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1961 Oct 31, A US Federal judge
ruled that Birmingham, Alabama, laws against integrated playing fields
were illegal.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1963 Jan 14, George C. Wallace was
sworn in as governor of Alabama with a pledge of "segregation forever."
(AP, 1/14/98)
1963 Apr 12, Police used dogs and
cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham,
Alabama.
(HN, 4/12/98)
1963 May 3, In Birmingham,
Alabama, police Commissioner Bull Connor unleashed dogs and
high-powered fire hoses on boycott-bound school children.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.1)
1963 May 11, Racial bomb attacks
took place in Birmingham, Alabama.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1963 May 12, There was a race riot
in Birmingham, Alabama.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1963 Jun 11, Federal troops were
used to force Alabama Gov. George Wallace to accept black students,
Vivian Malone Jones and James Wood, at the Univ. of Alabama. In 1996
George Wallace apologized in a formal ceremony. Gen'l. Henry V. Graham
(d.1999 at 82) of the National Guard escorted Wallace from the doorway
at Foster Auditorium.
(WSJ, 5/13/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 10/11/96, p.A3)
1963 Sep 2, Alabama Gov. George C.
Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling
the building with state troopers.
(AP, 9/2/97)(HN, 9/2/98)
1963 Sep 9, Alabama Gov George
Wallace served a federal injunction to stop orders of state police to
bar black students from enrolling in white schools.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1963 Sep 10, 20 black students
entered public schools in Birmingham, Tuskegee and Mobile, Ala.,
following a standoff between federal authorities and Gov. George C.
Wallace.
(AP, 9/10/97)
1963 Sep 15, The Ku Klux Klan
bombed the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four young
black girls (Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Collins, and
Cynthia Wesley) were killed in the bombing as they prepared their
Sunday school lesson on "The love that forgives." Later on the same day
James Ware,16, and his brother Virgil, 14, were shot at while bicycling
home. Virgil was killed. Another James Ware went on to become a US
district judge and falsely used the James and Virgil Ware story for
self promotion. Judge Ware withdrew from a new appointment to the SF
9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 after he admitted that he was not
the same James Ware. In Birmingham, Alabama, police dogs were set on
peaceful, Black demonstrators. The 1997 film "Four Little Girls" by
Spike Lee was a documentary of the church burning in Alabama. In 1977
Robert Chambliss (d.1985) was tried and convicted of murder. Suspect
Herman Cash died in 1994. In 2000 Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank
Cherry (d.2004) turned themselves in after they were indicted by a
state grand jury. In 2001 Thomas Blanton was convicted of murder and
sentenced to life in prison. Cherry was convicted May 22, 2002, and
sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 4/14/96, p.Z1, p.1)(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(SFEC,
3/16/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.45)(SFC,11/6/97, p.A9)(AP,
9/15/97)(SFC, 5/18/00, p.A1)(SFC, 5/2/01, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A1)(NW,
5/27/02, p.43)
1965 Jan 2, The New York Jets
signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported
$427,000.
(AP, 1/2/08)
1965 Feb 1, In Selma, Alabama,
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and 770 of his followers were arrested
on their civil rights march. They protested against voter
discrimination in Alabama.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.T1)(HN, 2/1/99)
1965 Feb 18, Alabama police were
sent to Marion as some 500 people marched from a church toward the city
jail to protest the jailing of a civil rights worker. Street lights
went out and troopers began swinging clubs on the marchers. Jimmie Lee
Jackson (26) was shot while aiding his grandfather (82) and mother.
Jackson died 2 days later. In 2007 trooper James Bonard Fowler was
indicted for the shooting death of Jackson.
(SFC, 5/10/07, p.A3)
1965 Mar 7, A march by some 600
civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state
troopers and posse under Sheriff Jim Clark (d.2007). The Black
community of Marion, Ala., marched to protest the earlier killing of a
demonstrator by a state trooper. John Lewis, later US Representative,
led the march and was hit in the head by a state trooper.
(AP, 3/7/98)(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A9)(SFC, 11/27/99,
p.C3)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.99)
1965 Mar 11, The Rev. James J.
Reeb (65), a white minister from Boston, died after whites beat him
during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala.
(AP, 3/11/98)(MC, 3/11/02)
1965 Mar 20, Lyndon B. Johnson
ordered 4,000 troops to protect the Selma-Montgomery civil rights
marchers.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1965 Mar 25, Martin Luther King
Jr. led a group of 25,000 to the state capital in Montgomery Ala. to
protest the denial of voting rights to blacks. Civil Rights pressures
increased in the US and blacks and whites marched in Selma and
Montgomery.
(TMC, 1994, p.1965)(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/98)
1965 Mar 25, Viola Liuzzo
(b.1925), a white civil rights worker from Detroit, was shot and killed
by the Ku Klux Klan on a road near Selma, Ala. The later trial of
Collie Leroy Jenkins, one of 3 men charged in the killing, ended in a
hung jury. Jenkins was also acquitted at a 2nd trial but was later
convicted along with Eugene Thomas of civil rights violations in
federal court and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Liuzzo)(SSFC,
7/20/08, p.B6)
1956 Apr 10, In Alabama singer Nat
Cole was attacked on stage at the Birmingham Municipal Auditorium by a
small group of white supremacists. Six local men were arrested for the
attack.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4113/is_200401/ai_n9350991/)(NYT,
4/11/1956, p.1)
1965 May 30, Vivian Malone (later
Vivian Malone Jones) became the first black graduate of the University
of Alabama with a degree in Business Management.
(NYT, 10/14/2005, p.C15)
1966 Jul 31, Alabamans burned
Beatle products due to John Lennon's remark that the Beatles are more
popular than Jesus.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1966 Lurleen Wallace, the wife of
George Wallace, was elected governor with 63% of the vote.
(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A30)
1968 Feb 8, George Wallace, the
pro-segregation governor of Alabama, entered the US presidential race.
Wallace ran as a third-party candidate. He was mainly popular in the
deep south, but he was able to attract 14% of the popular vote in the
November election.
(HN, 2/7/97)(www.answers.com/topic/george-wallace)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911
emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Oct 3, American Independent
Party presidential candidate George Wallace tapped retired Air Force
Gen. Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1970 Sep 12, The Univ. of Alabama
under coach Bear Bryant football team played against an integrated
opponent for the 1st time losing to the Univ. of Southern California
42-21.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.D10)
1971 Morris Dees founded the
Southern Poverty Law Center. It developed the legal strategy of suing
white supremacist groups for monetary damages on behalf of victims of
hate crimes.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A3)
1972 May 15, Alabama’s Gov. George
Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Laurel,
Maryland, for the Democratic presidential primary. Wallace was left
paralyzed. In 2007 Bremer was released from jail after serving 35 of
his 53 year sentence.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(AP,
5/15/97)(AP, 11/9/07)
1972 Jul 25, US health officials
conceded that blacks were used as guinea pigs in the 40 year Tuskegee
Syphilis Study in Macon County, Ala. By this time 28 participants had
died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, at least 40
wives had been infected and 19 children had contracted the disease at
birth [see 1932].
(SC, 7/25/02)(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A27)
1972 Aug 4, Arthur Bremer (b.1950)
was sentenced to 63 years for shooting Alabama Gov. Wallace and 3
bystanders on May 15, 1972, in Laurel, Maryland. An appeal reduced the
sentence to 53 years. After 35 years of incarceration, Bremer was
released from prison on parole on November 9, 2007. He remains on
probation until 2025 and resides in a halfway house in Cumberland,
Maryland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bremer#Release)
1972 Nov 10, Three black men
successfully hijacked a Southern Airways DC-9 after a stopover in
Birmingham, Ala., and flew to multiple locations in the United States
and one Canadian city and finally to Cuba with $2 million (actual cash,
Presidential "grant" totaled $10 million) and 10 parachutes. Co-pilot
Halroyd was wounded; they threatened to crash the plane into one of the
Oak Ridge nuclear installations; at McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, the
FBI shot out the tires; they forced pilot William Haas to take off. The
plane finally landed in Havana; two were sentenced in Cuba to 20 years,
one to 15 years. They returned to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25
year sentences.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings)(USAT,
6/11/03, p.2B)(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1972 Monsanto ceased producing
PCBs in Anniston, Alabama. In 2001 Monsanto agreed to a $40 million
settlement for toxic pollution.
(SFC, 4/25/01, p.A5)
1974 Apr 3, A series of 148 deadly
tornadoes struck wide parts of the South and Midwest before jumping
across the border into Canada; some 330 people were killed in 13 states
(Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi,
North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West
Virginia. Total property damage was estimated at $600 million. In 2007
Mark Levine authored “F5: Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent
Tornado Outbreak of the 20th Century.”
(AP, 4/3/99)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 9/4/05,
p.A7)(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P10)
1974 The Bellefonte nuclear power
plant was begun by the TVA in Hollywood, Ala. Construction was halted
in 1988 amid soaring costs.
(WSJ, 7/18/01, p.B1)
1975 Mar 22, In Alabama a fire at
the Browns Ferry Unit 1 nuclear power plant caused $10 million in
damage and knocked the reactor out of service for over a year. A worker
checking for air leaks with a candle ignited insulation near the
control room. The reactor was mothballed in 1985. It was scheduled to
reopen in 2007 following a 5 year, $1.8 billion restoration.
(SFC, 5/5/07, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/33l4hc)
1976 Oct 25, Gov. Wallace of
Alabama granted full pardon to Clarence Norris, the last known survivor
of 9 Scottsboro Boys who were convicted in a 1931 rape.
(http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/jwb/Collab/CivRts/ScottsBoys.htm)
1979 In Brookwood Alabama, the
Blue Creek No.5 mine opened. The mine is the deepest in North America
at 2,140 feet below the surface.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A14)
1981 Mar 20, Michael Donald
(b.1962), a black teenager in Mobile, Alabama, was abducted, tortured
and killed in what prosecutors charged was a Ku Klux Klan plot. Henry
Hays (d.1997) murdered Michael Donald in a random abduction. Donald was
beaten, cut, strangled and his body was strung up a tree. Hays was
convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed Jun 6, 1997. In 1987
A wrongful death suit filed by Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, gave
a $7 million verdict against the United Klans of America, led by Robert
Shelton (d.2003 at 73).
(SFC, 6/6/97,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Donald)(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A21)
1981 Nov 28, Bear Bryant of the
Univ. of Alabama won his 315th game to out distance Alonzo Stagg &
become college football's winningest coach.
(http://bryantmuseum.ua.edu/)
1982 Dec 29, Coach Paul "Bear"
Bryant ended his career with Alabama. He logged 323 wins
(http://bryantmuseum.ua.edu/direction.cfm?dir=bio). In 1996 Keith
Dunnavant authored “COACH: The Life of Paul "Bear" Bryant.”
(www.amazon.com/COACH-Life-Paul-Bear-Bryant/dp/0684800411)
1982 George Wallace ran for
governor for a 5th time and was elected. During his term he elected a
record number of black Alabamans and depended on a coalition of blacks
and whites for legislative support.
(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A30)
1982 Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals,
Ala., was shot to death. Judy Wicker later testified that she had
had sex with Thomas Arthur and paid him $10,000 to kill her husband.
Arthur was convicted and sentenced to death. His execution, set for Dec
6, 2007, was delayed because of a pending Supreme Court case involving
lethal injections.
(AP, 11/26/07)
1983 Jan 17, Alabama Gov George C.
Wallace (1919-1998), became governor for a record 4th time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace)(www.historybuff.com/states/al.html)
1983 Jan 26, Paul Bryant (Bear
Bryant), former Univ. of Alabama football coach, died at age 69. In
1975 he authored his autobiography “Bear.”
(http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Bryant_Bear.html)
1983 May, The mysterious Jack
Smith invited a number of Blacks and Whites to have supper together at
the Piccadilly Cafeteria. 35 people convened and the Friendly Supper
Club thus was born and continued to convene.
(WSJ, 12/17/98, p.A1,10)
1984 Richard Scrushy founded
HealthSouth. It went public in 1986.
(SFC, 6/29/05, p.C1)(WSJ, 6/29/05, p.A8)
1984 A rural store owner was
slain. Robert Lee Traver Jr., was convicted and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A2)
1985 Jun 4, The Supreme Court
upheld a lower court ruling striking down an Alabama law providing for
a daily "moment of silence" in public schools.
(AP, 6/4/97)(http://tinyurl.com/2lqt4u)
1986 Apr 2, George Corley Wallace
(1919-1998), Governor of Alabama (Dem.), announced his retirement.
(http://tinyurl.com/fuobf)(http://tinyurl.com/eegg3)
1987 May 10, President Reagan
visited Tuskegee University, one of the nation's oldest black
educational institutions, where he told graduating seniors his
administration "won't be satisfied until every American who wants a job
has a job and is earning a decent living."
(AP, 5/10/97)
1987 Nov 21, James E. Folsom (79),
former 2-term governor of Alabama (1947-1951 and 1955-59), died.
(http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/folsom.html)
1988 Feb 8, Jimmy Lee Dill fatally
shot and killed Leon Shaw in Birmingham, Alabama, and robbed him of
cocaine and about $200. Dill (49) was executed in 2009.
(SFC, 4/17/09,
p.A6)(www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=10197524&nav=0rde)
1988 The first gathering of
Airstream enthusiasts was held in Huntsville, Ala., and attracted 2,741
trailers. The Airstream was born when Wally Byam (d.1962) riveted
shiny aluminum to a steel frame on wheels in the 1930s.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A12)
1989 Dec 16, US Federal appeals
court judge Robert S. Vance was killed by a mail bomb at his Alabama
home. Walter Leroy Moody Junior was later sentenced to death for
killing Vance, and received seven life terms on federal charges in that
killing and the death of civil rights attorney Robert E. Robinson.
(AP, 12/16/99)
1989 Bart Chamberlain (1914-2007,
Alabama oil man, fled to Switzerland following court ordered penalties
of $25 million for oil sales that circumvented price controls.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.A5)
1990 Jul 31, Shoal Creek, a
private club in Birmingham, Alabama, that drew criticism for being
all-white, announced it had accepted a black businessman as an honorary
member.
(AP, 7/31/00)
1992 Oct 9, In Alabama Jack
Trawick abducted and killed college student Stephanie Gach (21) in
Birmingham. Trawick (62), a serial murderer, was executed in 2009.
(SFC, 6/12/09,
p.A6)(www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/09/jun09.htm)
1992 The Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute was begun.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.4)
1992 Governor Guy Hunt was
indicted for looting his tax-exempt inaugural fund to pay off personal
debts.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A2)
1992 Autherine Lucy Foster
(b.1929), wife of Rev. Hugh Foster, finally got a degree from the Univ.
of Alabama, when she received a Master's in Education. She had been
suspended from the school in 1956 due to campus safety issues relating
to her race. Also in that graduating class was her daughter Grazia, who
received a Bachelor's Degree in Corporate Finance.
(NYT, 4/26/1992, p.43)
1993 Jul 13, Race car driver Davey
Allison died in Birmingham, Ala., of injuries suffered in a helicopter
crash.
(AP, 7/13/98)
1993 Sep 22, Forty-seven people
were killed when an Amtrak passenger train derailed and crashed into
Bayou Canot near Mobile, Ala.
(AP, 9/22/98)
1993 The $13 million Civil Rights
Institute opened in Birmingham. It was dedicated to research on civil
rights around the world with focus on the Deep South.
(SSFC, 5/12/02, p.C12)
1993 Mobile, Ala., became sister
cities with Havana, Cuba.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.26)
1993 Governor Guy Hunt, halfway
through his 2nd term, was convicted and forced to resign. He was
sentenced to 5 years probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and a
$212,000 fine. In 1997 a parole board, partly appointed by Hunt, voted
to pardon him.
(SFC, 6/12/97, p.A2)
1993 Governor James E. Folsom Jr.
(b.1948) led an offer to Mercedes-Benz of $253 million in incentives to
build its 1st auto plant in Alabama.
(WSJ, 4/3/02,
p.A1)(http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/folsom.html)
1993 Deborah Spivey Barton (39)
and her mother Eloise Powell Spivey (59) of Georgia were found beaten
to death in a camper at a campground in northern Alabama. Mark O.
Barton, Deborah's husband was a suspect, but never charged. [see
Georgia Jul 29, 1999]
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.A3)
1994 Mar 27, More than 40 people
were killed as violent thunderstorms tore across the Southeast. A
church in Piedmont, Alabama, collapsed in a tornado and 19 were killed.
(AP, 3/27/99)
1994 Aug 6, In Wedowee, Ala., an
apparent arson fire destroyed Randolph County High School. It had been
the focus of tensions over the principal's stand against interracial
dating.
(AP, 8/6/99)
1994 Sep 17, Heather Whitestone of
Alabama was crowned "Miss America," the first deaf woman to win the
title.
(AP, 9/17/97)
1995 Feb 16, Four people were
killed when tornadoes tore through rural north Alabama.
(AP, 2/16/00)
1995 Apr 17, An Air Force jet
exploded and crashed in a wooded area in eastern Alabama, killing eight
people, including an assistant Air Force secretary and a two-star
general.
(AP, 4/16/00)
1995 Sep 27-Oct 6, Hurricane Opal
caused at least 50 deaths in Guatemala and Mexico and 20 deaths in the
United States. The storm hit Central America before striking Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1995 The Fort McClellan Army base
in Louisiana was closed.
(SFC, 9/15/02, p.A5)
1996 Jan 31, Felicia Scott (29)
shot and killed Carethia Curry (17), who was pregnant, then performed a
crude cesarean section to remove Curry’s baby for herself. Scott was
sentenced to life in prison in 1998.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, The Clinton
administration awarded a $1 mil grant to the Univ. of Alabama for an
experiment that would test for illicit drug use of everyone arrested in
Birmingham.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)
1997 Jul 5, An editorial stated
that Governor Fob James had declared Alabama to be a rights-free zone.
In a letter to a federal judge Gov. James stated that the
Constitution’s Bill of Rights does not apply to the states.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A16)
1997 Federal Judge Ira DeMent
ordered public schools in DeKalb County to stop evangelizing students.
Gov. Fob James vowed to resist the order. Negotiator Charles Haynes was
brought in and helped settle the dispute with a program that taught
about religions and their value systems with no preaching.
(WSJ, 3/23/98, p.A1)
1997 Community Newspaper Holdings
was formed in Birmingham, Alabama. By 2006 it published papers in over
200 US communities.
(SFC, 10/28/06, p.C3)
1997 Mercedes-Benz began producing
SUVs in Vance.
(WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A1)
1997 Monsanto spun off its
chemical operations and created Solutia Inc. In 2002 an Alabama jury
found Monsanto and its corporate successors guilty of releasing tons of
PCBs in Anniston between 1935-1979.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A7)
1997 Randy McCullar was shot in
the back of the head by Timothy Richards, who did so at the urging of
his wife, Shonda Nicole Johnson, so she could be cleared of a bigamy
charge. In 1999 Johnson, later married to Bill McIntyre, was convicted
in the murder of McCullar.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A3)
1998 Jan 29, In Birmingham, Ala.,
the New Woman, All Woman Health Care [abortion] Clinic was bombed.
Robert Sanderson (35), a moonlighting police officer, was killed and
Emily Lyons, a nurse, was critically injured. A note was later received
claiming the "Army of God" was responsible. Suspect Eric Robert Rudolph
(31) of North Carolina was arrested May 31,2003. Rudolph was convicted
and sentenced to life in prison in 2005.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(SSFC,
6/1/03, p.A1)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A9)
1998 Feb 14, Authorities
officially declared Eric Rudolph a suspect in the bombing of a
Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic and offered a $100,000 reward.
(AP, 2/14/03)
1998 Mar 9, A vast storm caused
deadly flooding in the South and heavy snows in the Midwest. In Elba,
Alabama, the Pea River broke its levee and put the town under 5 feet of
water.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 10, A teenager killed his
parents with an ax and a sledgehammer. Jeffery Franklin (17) also
wounded 3 siblings and led police on a "wild car chase" before being
captured.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 8, A line of storms
struck the southeast and killed at least 41 people. 32 were left dead
in Alabama, 8 in Georgia and 1 in Mississippi.
(SFC, 4/9/98, p.A3)(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 14, Flash floods hit
Tennessee and Alabama and 2 people were reported killed. Meanwhile hot
weather in Texas was responsible for some 23 deaths where temperatures
hit over 100 for the last 26 days.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A3)
1998 Jul 20, A report on political
trouble in Greene Ct. noted that the population was 80% black, while
over 90% of the land belonged to whites.
(WSJ, 7/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 13, George Wallace (79),
former governor of Alabama, died in Montgomery. Dan Carter authored
Wallace’s biography: "The Politics of Rage."
(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A30)
1998 Sep 15-Oct 1, Hurricane
Georges caused 602 deaths in the Caribbean and four in the United
States. The storm hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Antigua, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and British and U.S.
Virgin Islands before striking Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Florida.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1998 Nov 18, At the Holyland
Commune in Emelle 4 preschoolers died after a fire started from an
upset electrical lamp.
(SFC, 11/19/98, p.A2)
1998 Nov, Gov. Fob James was
defeated. He had recently signed a law that prohibited nude dancing in
night clubs and banned the sale of sex toys including vibrators. Women
challenged the law in 1999.
(SFC, 2/18/99, p.A4)
1999 Jan, Most of the state's
public libraries acquired computers and internet access through the
Gates Learning Foundation. The foundation planned to cover all 50
states.
(SFEC, 2/21/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 19, In Sylacauga,
Alabama, Billy Jack Gaither (39), a textile warehouse worker, was
abducted, beaten to death with an ax handle and burned on a pyre of
tires due to a sexual advance. Steven Eric Mullins (25) and Charles
Monroe Butler Jr. (21) were later arrested and charged with murder.
Butler was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to life in prison without
parole.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.A1)(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 8/6/99,
p.A3)
1999 Mar 29, A federal judge
overturned Alabama's 1998 ban on sex toys.
(SFC, 3/30/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 20, A Mobile jury decided
that waitress Tonda Dickerson (28) would have to share her $10 million
lottery jackpot with 4 co-workers due to a share-the wealth agreement,
which she denied.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A7)
1999 Aug 5, In Alabama Alan Eugene
Miller (34) killed 3 people at 2 firms in Pelham. Miller pleaded not
guilty by reason of diminished mental capacity. He was convicted and
sentenced to death. On July 31, 2000, he was assigned to death row at
Holman CF.
(SFC, 8/6/99,
p.A3)(www.users.on.net/~bundy23/wwom/miller2.htm)
1999 Don Siegelman began serving
as governor of Alabama.
(SFC, 5/28/04, p.A3)
1999 Cecil Jackson founded the
Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. Country singer Hank
Williams (1923-1953) grew up in Montgomery and died enroute to a gig in
Ohio.
(SFC, 10/26/06, p.E3)
2000 Feb 3, The US Supreme Court
granted a stay of execution for Robert Lee Traver Jr., who was to be
electrocuted in Alabama.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A2)
2000 May 17, Two former Ku Klux
Klansmen were arrested on murder charges in the 1963 church bombing in
Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four black girls. Thomas Blanton
Junior was convicted and sentenced to life in prison May 1, 2001. Bobby
Frank Cherry was indicted in 2000 and later convicted and sentenced to
life in prison.
(AP, 5/17/01)(AP, 5/17/05)
2000 Sep 12, Selma elected James
Perkins as its 1st black mayor. He defeated Joe Smitherman, who was
seeking his 10th straight term.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A10)
2000 Oct 2, James Perkins took
office as the mayor of Selma.
(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.D8)
2000 Oct 7, A statue to
Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was erected in Selma and
opposed by civil rights activists.
(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.D8)
2000 Dec 1, In Montgomery Rosa
Parks (87) attended the dedication of the Rosa Parks Museum and Library.
(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T14)
2000 Dec 16, Tornadoes hit the
state and 10 people were killed at a Tuscaloosa trailer park. 12 people
were killed and 50 injured.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.A7)(WSJ, 12/18/00, p.A1)
2001 Sep 23, Four coal miners were
killed in an explosion at the Blue Creek Mine Number Five in Brookwood,
Ala. 9 miners who rushed to their aid also died. The mine is the
deepest in North America at 2,140 feet below the surface.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A14)(AP, 9/23/06)
2001 Alabama’s chief justice Roy
S. Moore placed a monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of
the state Supreme Court building. A federal judge ruled the monument
unconstitutional in 2002.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A4)
2002 Jan 3, A judge in Alabama
ruled that former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry was mentally
competent to stand trial on murder charges in the 1963 Birmingham
church bombing that killed four black girls. Cherry was later
convicted, and served a life sentence until his death in November 2004.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2002 Feb 1, The NCAA placed
Alabama on five years' probation, jolting the football program with a
two-year bowl ban and heavy scholarship reductions.
(AP, 2/1/03)
2002 Feb 22, An Alabama jury found
Monsanto and its corporate successors (Solutia Inc.) guilty of
releasing tons of PCBs in Anniston between 1935-1979. In 2004 some
18,447 plaintiffs were scheduled to an average of $7,725, while 27
lawyers were scheduled to receive over $4 million each.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A7)(SFC, 3/24/04, p.A5)
2002 Mar 25, The Bush
administration filed an agreement for an immediate study and eventual
clean-up of PCBs in Anniston.
(SSFC, 3/24/02, p.A12)
2002 Mar 28, It was reported that
the US government planned to distribute safety hoods and training to
some 35,000 state residents in an eastern county prior to the
incineration of nerve-gas weapons in the fall.
(WSJ, 3/28/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 1, Hyundai Motor Co.
picked a site near Montgomery for its 1st US assembly plant.
(WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A1)
2002 May 10, In Alabama Linda Lyon
Block (54), a political extremist, was put to death in an electric
chair. She had been convicted of murdering a police officer in 1993.
(SFC, 5/11/02, p.A6)
2002 May 22, Bobby Frank Cherry
(71), former Alabama Klansman, was convicted for the Sep 14, 1963,
murder of 4 Black girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The jury
sent him to prison for life.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A1)
2002 May 22, Robert Rhodes (68),
former Florida dog track security guard, was charged in Alabama with
cruelty to animals after the remains of some 3,000 greyhounds were
found on his property.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A6)
2002 Nov 6, Alabama Gov. Don
Siegelman called for a state recount following his loss to GOP Rep. Bob
Riley by 3,195 votes. Siegelman conceded Nov 18.
(SFC, 11/9/02, p.A4)(WSJ, 11/19/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 10, A series of
pulverizing storms barreled through more than a half-dozen US states
including Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi and Pennsylvania,
killing at least 36 people. More than 100 were injured.
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.A4)(AP, 11/10/07)
2003 Jan 1, A US Army incineration
at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, scheduled to begin destroying
stockpiled chemical weapons in Oct 2002, was postponed to at least Jan
1, 2003. A global treaty called for complete destruction by 2004.
(SFC, 9/15/02, p.A5)
2003 Jan, Susan Pace Hamill,
tax-law professor, launched an effort for state tax reform with her
paper: An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics."
Alabama had the lowest income tax threshold at $4,600.
(WSJ, 2/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 25, In Alabama 4
job seekers were killed at an employment agency following an argument
over a CD player.
(WSJ, 2/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 19, The SEC filed a civil
suit claiming that HealthSouth Corp. and its chairman Richard M.
Scrushy had committed massive accounting fraud to overstate earnings by
some $1.4 billion since 1999. Weston Smith, the former finance chief,
later pleaded guilty to 4 charges. HealthSouth fired Scrushy as
chairman and CEO. He was indicted in November.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)(WSJ,
6/29/05, p.A8)
2003 Aug 9, The US Army fired up
its first chemical weapons incinerator located near a residential area,
outside Anniston, Ala., to destroy two rockets loaded with enough sarin
nerve agent to wipe out a city.
(SSFC, 8/10/03, p.A4)(AP, 8/9/08)
2003 Aug 14, Roy Moore, Alabama's
chief justice, said that he would refuse to move a Ten Commandments
monument from the state judicial building in Montgomery.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A4)
2003 Aug 27, A moving crew rolled
a massive Ten Commandments monument out of the rotunda of the Alabama
Judicial Building to comply with a federal court order as protesters
knelt, prayed and chanted, "Put it back!"
(AP, 8/27/04)
2003 Sep 9, Alabama voters
rejected Amendment One by a margin of 2 to 1. The liberal tax measure
was endorsed by Gov. Bob Riley and based on Judeo-Christian ethics.
(SSFC, 12/12/04, p.A14)
2003 Oct 22, Christina Mae Watson
died as she and her new husband dove off the tropical coast of
Queensland. In 2009 David Gabriel Watson, of Birmingham, Alabama,
pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was expected to serve just one year
of the four-and-a-half-year sentence in the death of his wife of 11
days. The suspended sentence was not unusual in such crimes in
Queensland.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2004 Jan 4, Jake Hess (b.1927),
Gospel music star, died at an Opelika, Alabama, hospital after
suffering a heart attack. With a career spanning six decades, Hess came
to national prominence as a member of the Statesmen Quartet and founder
of the Imperials. The four-time Grammy winner performed on several of
Elvis Presley albums and sang at Presley's funeral in 1977. Hess also
sang at Hank Williams' funeral in 1953. He was buried in Columbia,
Georgia. Hess was born Sept 6, 1927, in Columbia, Georgia.
2004 May 17, The Alabama
Legislature approved a 26 cent increase for a pack of cigarettes. This
increased the tax from 16.5 cents to 42.5 cents.
(USAT, 5/18/04, p.17A)
2004 May 27, Former Alabama Gov,
Don Siegelman was indicted on bid-rigging charges.
(SFC, 5/28/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 5, Alabama executed James
Hubbard (74) by lethal injection for the 1977 murder of Lillian
Montgomery (62). The 2-time killer was the oldest inmate executed in
the US since 1941, when James Stephens of Colorado was executed at age
76. The oldest person executed in the 20th century was 83-year-old Joe
Lee of Virginia in 1916.
(www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/hubbard922.htm)(WSJ, 8/6/04,
p.A1)(SFC, 8/6/04, p.A2)
2004 Sep 16, Hurricane Ivan
slammed ashore in Alabama with winds of 130 mph, packing deadly
tornadoes and a powerful punch of waves and rain that threatened to
swamp communities from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. At least 23
people were killed.
(AP, 9/16/04)(SFC, 9/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 17, The violent remains
of Hurricane Ivan pounded a large swath of the eastern United States,
drenching an area from Georgia to Ohio. Ivan left 70 dead in the
Caribbean and 40 dead in the US including 4 in Alabama, 16 in Florida,
4 in Georgia, 4 in Louisiana, 3 in Mississippi, and 8 in North Carolina.
(AP, 9/17/04)(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A16)
2004 Sep 18, Miss Alabama Deidre
Downs, an aspiring medical student, won the Miss America contest.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Nov 18, Former Ku Klux
Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry (74), who was convicted of killing four
black girls in a racially motivated bombing of a Birmingham, Ala.,
church in 1963, died in prison.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Mar 29, Howell Heflin (83),
former Democrat senator from Alabama (1978-1996), died. "It has been
publicly stated by black leaders that I was the first senator from my
state who believed in and supported the civil rights movement," Mr.
Heflin said in his farewell speech. "I worked to secure the extension
of the Voting Rights Act; to appoint African-Americans and women to the
federal bench and other federal offices; to support historically black
colleges; to ensure passage of the civil rights restoration bill; to
help pass the fair housing bill; and to establish a national holiday
honoring the late Martin Luther King Jr."
(WSJ, 3/30/05, p.A1)(NYT, 3/30.05)
2005 Jun 28, In Alabama a jury
acquitted former CEO Richard Scrushy of federal corporate corruption
charges in a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at HealthSouth. The SEC soon
announced that it would press a civil fraud case seeking $800 million
from Scrushy.
(SFC, 6/29/05, p.C1)(SFC, 7/6/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 10, Hurricane Dennis
swamped homes, ripped off roofs and felled power lines and trees when
it hurtled into northwest Florida and Alabama with 120-mph (190-kph)
winds. The storm left at least 16 dead in Haiti. Dennis killed at least
16 people in Cuba, damaged or destroyed 15,000 homes and caused an
estimated $1.4 billion in property damage.
(Reuters, 7/11/05)(WSJ, 7/11/05, p.A1)(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 18, In Alabama Eric
Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a 1998
abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham. On Aug 22 he was sentenced to 4
life terms for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta, and 1997 attacks
on an abortion clinic and gay nightclub.
(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 19, An Alabama gas
station owner was run over and killed when he tried to stop a driver
from leaving without paying a $52 gas bill.
(SFC, 8/22/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 29, An oil rig tore free
of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast, before
surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge. 92% of crude
and 83% of natural gas production were shut down, as Gulf of Mexico
rigs were evacuated.
(AFP, 8/30/05)
2005 Aug 30, The death toll in
Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina passed 100. Flooding reached 11 feet
in Mobile, Ala. Breaches in at least 2 levees from Lake Pontchartrain
put parts of New Orleans under 20 feet of water. Mayor Ray Nagin
estimated that 80% of New Orleans was flooded. Tourists snapped
pictures of looters in the French Quarter.
(AP, 8/30/05)(SFC, 8/31/05, p.A10)
2005 Sep 2, Pres. Bush made a tour
of damages from Hurricane Katrina in Alabama, Mississippi and New
Orleans. He acknowledged that current relief results were not
acceptable.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Alabama Gov. Bob Riley
announced a $10 million pilot program called Alabama Connecting
Classrooms Educators and Students Statewide (Access). The idea was use
the Internet and videoconferencing to link students in one town to
teachers in another.
(Econ, 7/18/09, p.30)
2005 South Korea’s Hyundai Motor
Co. opened a site near Montgomery, Alabama, for its 1st US assembly
plant.
(WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/14/06, p.D3)
2006 Feb 3, In Alabama 5 small
Baptist churches were found burned to the ground in Bibb County. 4 of
the churches had white congregations, one was black. On Dec 20 three
former college students, aged 19-20, pleaded guilty to burning 9
churches over 2 nights. In 2007 Benjamin N. Moseley and Matthew L.
Cloyd were sentenced to 8 years in prison. Russell L. DeBusk Jr., who
only took part in the 1st burnings, was sentenced to 7 years [see Feb
7].
(SFC, 2/4/06, p.A3)(SFC, 12/21/06, p.A3)(SFC,
4/10/07, p.A5)
2006 Feb 7, Alabama state
officials reported four more rural Baptist churches following rash of
suspected arsons that burned five others south of Birmingham last week
[see Feb 3].
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 11, In northwest Alabama
an arson fire severely damaged the Beaverton Freewill Baptist Church.
This was the 10th in a recent string of blazes.
(SFC, 2/13/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 8, US federal law
enforcement officials arrested 3 college students, Matthew Lee Cloyd
(20), Benjamin Nathan Moseley (19) and Russell Lee DeBusk Jr. (19), for
the string of church arsons that destroyed or damaged nine rural
churches in Alabama last month.
(AP, 3/8/06)(SFC, 3/9/06, p.A4)
2006 Mar 13, The US Agriculture
Dept. confirmed that a cow in Alabama had tested positive for mad cow
disease. The animal had not entered the food supply for people of
animals. This case of the disease, as well as one from Texas in 2005,
was later reported as atypical.
(SFC, 3/14/06, p.A3)(SFC, 6/12/06, p.A6)
2006 May 24, In Alabama Regions
Financial Corp. and rival AmSouth Bancorp struck a $10 billion deal to
merge.
(WSJ, 5/25/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 25, The Alabama Supreme
Court ruled that Richard Scrushy, the fired CEO of HealthSouth Corp.,
must repay $47.8 million in bonuses he received during a massive
financial fraud at the medical services chain.
(WSJ, 8/26/06, p.A9)
2006 Nov 20, A bus crash in
Huntsville, Alabama, killed 3 teenage girls and left at least 30
students injured. A 4th student died the next day.
(SFC, 11/21/06, p.A3)(SFC, 11/22/06, p.A3)
2006 Dec 5, In Alabama Geontae
Glass, a 5-year-old boy who was asleep in the back of a car when it was
stolen from a parking lot a day earlier, was found dead in a
neighboring county.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 The US Navy planned to launch
2 versions of its new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), currently under
construction in Wisconsin and Alabama.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.A24)
2007 Mar 1, A violent storm system
ripped apart an Alabama high school as students hunkered inside and
later tore through Georgia, hitting a hospital and raising the death
toll to at least 20 across the Midwest and Southeast. Eight students
died when a tornado struck Alabama’s Enterprise High School.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 May 3, In Alabama Jamison
Stone (11) killed a wild pig weighing 1,051 pounds with a .50 caliber
revolver. The pig measured 9 feet, 4 inches from snout to tail. The
animal's former owner later said the not-so-wild pig, named Fred, had
been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the Lost Creek
Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a 150-acre fenced
area.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A3)(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 11, Germany’s steelmaker
ThyssenKrupp AG said it will build a new $4.19 billion steel plant in
Alabama. Deutsche Telekom employees began an open-ended strike in
protest at restructuring measures at Europe's biggest telecoms operator.
(AP, 5/11/07)(AFP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 24, The Alabama
Legislature passed a resolution that expressed profound regret for the
state’s role in slavery. Gov Bob Riley was expected to sign it. In
recent months Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia made formal
apologies.
(SFC, 5/26/07, p.A3)
2007 Jun 4, Jim Clark (84),
sheriff and segregationist from Alabama, died. He turned back the march
7, 1965, civil rights march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge leaving 57
people injured. National revulsion led to the Voting Rights Act later
that year.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.99)
2007 Jun 28, In Alabama a district
judge ordered Richard M. Scrushy, former head of HealthSouth to
immediately begin serving an 82-month prison sentence for bribery.
Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was sentenced to over 7 years in
prison. In 2008 he was released on bond after serving 9 months in
prison.
(WSJ, 6/28/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/28/08, p.A1)
2007 Sep 11, In northeast Alabama
a US Army helicopter on a training flight in foggy weather struck a
power line and crashed, killing all three soldiers on board.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2008 Jan 7, In Alabama Lam Luong
(37), a shrimp fisherman and drug addict, threw his 4 young children
into the Intracoastal Waterway from the Dauphin Island bridge. He
initially reported the children missing and then confessed. On March 5,
2009, Luong pleaded guilty and asked to be put to death. On April 30 he
was sentenced to death.
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.A3)(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A6)(SFC, 5/1/09,
p.A8)
2008 Feb 5, Storms swept across
southeast US as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. At least 31 people
were killed in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, 7 in Kentucky and four in
Alabama. It was one of the 15 worst tornado death tolls since 1950, and
the nation's deadliest barrage of tornadoes since 76 people were killed
in Pennsylvania and Ohio on May 31, 1985. The death toll rose to 59.
(AP, 2/6/08)(AP, 2/7/08)(WSJ, 2/8/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 1, An Alabama jury found
Glaxo and Novartis guilty of drug-price fraud and ordered them to pay
$114 million.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 28, Police in Alabama
arrested Anthony Hopkins (37), a part-time evangelist, after finding a
body in his home freezer. Police believed it was the body of his wife,
Arletha Hopkins, who had not been heard of for 3 years.
(www.wsbtv.com/news/17043437/detail.html)
2008 Aug 20, In Alabama five men
were found killed, execution style in Shelby County. The killings were
soon identified as a retaliation hit over drug money with ties to
Mexico's notorious Gulf Cartel.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2008 Oct 3, In Alabama a collision
on a rural highway between an 18-wheeler and a state van killed 6
applicants for prison jobs and their driver.
(SFC, 10/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Dec 1, In Alabama mayor Larry
Langford of Birmingham was arrested on charges of steering millions of
dollars of bond work to a friend in exchange for over $230,000 in
bribes. The 101-count indictment also charged Montgomery banker Bill
Blount and lobbyist Al LaPierre.
(SFC, 12/2/08, p.A2)
2009 Jan 11, Marcus Schrenker's
plane went down en route to Destin, Fla., from Anderson, Ind. Schrenker
(38), an Indiana investment manager, had reported that the windshield
imploded and that he was bleeding profusely. Federal marshals believe
he faked a distress call before parachuting from his plane over Alabama
and disappearing on a motorcycle he had stashed in advance. US Marshals
apprehended Schrenker on Jan 13 at a northern Florida campground.
Officers had to tend to Schrenker's self-inflicted gash to the wrist
before he was airlifted to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. In August
Schrenker pleaded guilty was sentenced in Florida to 4 years and 3
months in federal prison.
(AP, 1/13/09)(AP, 1/14/09)(SFC, 8/20/09, p.A4)
2009 Feb 14, In Alabama suspicious
fires destroyed 2 churches and damaged a third near the Georgia border.
(SFC, 2/18/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 8,
Country singer Hank Lochlin (b.1918) died at his home in Brewston,
Alabama. His 70 charted singles included “Send Me the Pillow You Dream
On” (1949 & 1958) and “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” (1960).
(SFC, 3/12/09, p.B6)
2009 Mar 10, In Alabama Michael
McLendon (28) set off on a rampage of 10 slayings across two rural
counties and then killed himself.
(AP, 3/11/09)(SFC, 3/12/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 7, In Alabama authorities
found the body of Kevin Lee Garner (45) near his burned home in
Priceville. The home had burned overnight. Garner's body was found
following a day of searching for him in several north Alabama counties
following the murders of four of his family members in the Greenhill
community of Lauderdale County.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090408/ap_on_re_us/alabama_four_dead)(SFC,
4/8/09, p.A5)
2009 May 20, In Alabama 5
Birmingham police officers were fired for beating an unconscious
suspect ejected from a car after a chase. The attack was captured on a
patrol car videotape but didn't surface publicly for a year. The video
shows police pursuing Anthony Warren's van on Jan. 23, 2008. One
officer on foot was hurt when the van swerved through traffic. It
overturned on a ramp, ejecting Warren, who lay motionless as officers
ran toward him. The video shows them beating him with their fists, feet
and a billy club.
(AP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 25, In Alabama prisoners
Joshua Southwick (26) and Ashton Mink (22) were mistakenly allowed
outside a prison by a worker who thought they were kitchen trusties. On
June 6 they were arrested after a nearly 14-hour standoff on a ranch in
North Dakota. Also taken into custody were two women who authorities
said helped the men escape: Angela Diana Mink (25) and Jacquelin Rae
Kennamer Mink (25) Mink's sister and wife.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 18, An Alabama state
judge ordered former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to pay nearly $2.9
billion to shareholders who sued over a massive accounting fraud that
nearly sent the rehabilitation chain into bankruptcy.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jul 18, In southern Tennessee
5 people were found dead in two neighboring rural homes near
Fayetteville, and a sixth body was discovered at a business about 30
miles away in Huntsville, Ala. Jacob Shaffer (30) of Fayetteville was
charged later that day with homicide.
(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jul 30, Bill Leigon,
president of Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif., said that visits to
the company's Web site have increased tenfold since news of an Alabama
ban on his Cycles Gladiator wine broke late last week. Callers from
across the country have been asking where they can buy the wine. It was
reported that the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board had recently
told stores and restaurants to quit serving Cycles Gladiator wine
because of a label that features a nude nymph. The wine's label is
copied from an 1895 French advertising poster for Cycles Gladiator
bicycles. It shows a side view of a full-bodied nymph flying alongside
a winged bicycle.
(AP, 7/31/09)
2009 Aug 14, Real estate lender
Colonial BancGroup Inc. was shut down by federal officials in the
biggest US bank failure this year. The FDIC, which was appointed
receiver of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial and its about $25
billion in assets, said the failed bank's 346 branches in Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas will reopen at the normal times
starting on Aug 15 as offices of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T.
Regulators also closed four other banks: Community Bank of Arizona,
based in Phoenix; Union Bank, based in Gilbert, Ariz.; Community Bank
of Nevada, based in Las Vegas; and Dwelling House Savings and Loan
Association, located in Pittsburgh. The closures boosted to 77 the
number of federally insured banks that have failed in 2009.
(AP, 8/15/09)
2009 Aug 21, Guaranty Bank became
the 2nd-largest US bank to fail this year after the Texas lender was
shut down by regulators and most of its operations sold at a loss of
billions of dollars for the US government to a major Spanish bank.
Guaranty's failure, along with those of three small banks in Georgia
and Alabama, brought to 81 the number of US bank failures this year.
(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Oct 28, In Alabama a federal
jury convicted Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford on charges of accepting
bribes in exchange for funnelling $7.1 million in bond business to an
investment banker.
(SFC, 10/29/09, p.A6)
2009 Dec 12, Alabama running back
Mark Ingram won this year’s Heisman trophy.
(AP, 12/13/09)
2009 Dec 22, Parker Griffith
(b.1942), a Democratic congressman from Alabama, announced that he was
switching parties to become a Republican.
(Econ, 1/9/10,
p.32)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Griffith)
2010 Jan 17, In Hoover, Alabama, a
fire at a Days Inn motel killed 4 college students from Mississippi
Univ. for Women in Columbus, Miss.
(SFC, 1/18/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 5, The US White House
increased its criticism of Republican Senators following reports that
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama had placed a blanket hold on more than
70 administration nominees in order to secure funding for home-state
projects. On Feb 9 Shelby’s office said he will stop blocking Senate
confirmation of some 70 nominees.
(SFC, 2/6/10, p.A6)(AP, 2/9/10)
2010 Feb 5, In Alabama a boy (14)
was shot by another student inside a middle school in Madison. The
victim died at a hospital.
(SFC, 2/6/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 12, In Alabama Amy Bishop
(42), a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville,
gunned down three of her colleagues during a faculty meeting in an
apparent tenure dispute.
(AP, 2/13/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Alabama Larry
Langford (63), the former mayor of Birmingham, was sentenced to 15
years in prison for taking $241,000 in bribes.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A5)
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Subject = Alabama