August

The Charleston Earthquake – Today In Southern History

Other Years:

1864 – The Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia during the Atlanta Campaign caused more than 2,000 casualties.
1935 – Baseball great Frank Robinson was born in Beaumont, Texas.
1991 – In a “Solidarity Day” protest hundreds of thousands of union members marched in Washington, DC.
1997 – South Carolina performer James Brown became the first American artist to appear in Lebanon following the lift of the U.S. travel ban to the country.
2005 – Toby Keith announced that he was starting his own label named Show Dog Nashville Records.

Other Years:

1690 – A force of British militia, Yamassee and Yuchi Indians attacked the Timucua Indians and Spanish at the Franciscan mission of San Juan de Guacara in northern Florida, killing all the Timucua Indians.
1800 – Gabriel Prosser led a slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia.
1861 – Federal General John C. Fremont exceeded his authority and issued a proclamation freeing slaves in Missouri. His superiors soon repudiated the order and relieved him of command.
1862 – Confederates again routed federal troops at the Second Battle of Manassas, Virginia.
1862 – The Battle of Richmond, KY
1893 – “The Kingfish,” Huey Pierce Long, Jr. was born in Winnfield, Louisiana.
1956 – White protestors prevented enrollment of black students at Mansfield High School, Mansfield, Texas.
1969 – More than 120,000 attended the Texas International Pop Festival rock concerts.
1969 – Blacks rioted in Fort Lauderdale Florida.
1979 – Hurricane David first made landfall, it would kill 1,200 people in Florida, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Other Years:

1957 – Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a filibuster record in the U.S. when ended a marathon speech of 24 hours and 18 minutes.
1971 – Alabama native Hank Aaron became the first baseball player in the National League to hit 100 or more runs in each of 11 seasons.
1977 – Lou Brock of Arkansas beat Ty Cobb’s 49 year-old record
of 892 stolen bases while playing for the St. Louis Cardinals.
1983 – The anchor of the USS Monitor was retrieved by divers off the coast of North Carolina.
2007 – Six U.S. cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were illegally flown without proper authorization from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana.

Other Years:

1565 – A Spanish expedition of 1,500 soldiers and colonists, led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed on the coast of Florida with the goal of securing the land for Spain. The settlers would soon establish St. Augustine.
1830 – The first passenger-carrying train of its kind to be built in America, “The Tom Thumb” was demonstrated in Baltimore, Maryland.
1861 – Federal forces unsuccessfully attacked Confederate batteries at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the Battle of Hatteras Inlet.
1957 – South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond began a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957. He stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
1963 – More than 250,000 people joined the March on Washington and listened as Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Other Years:

1667 – The earliest recorded hurricane in North America struck Jamestown, Virginia.
1861 – The Battle of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina began.
1862 – The Battle of Second Manassas, Virginia began.
1881 – A hurricane struck Florida and the Carolinas. It is estimated that more than 700 people were killed.
1955 – While visiting family in Mississippi, fourteen-year-old Chicago resident Emmett Till was beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for alleged lewd behavior.
1986 – Texas baseball legend Nolan Ryan, while playing for the Houston Astros, earned his 250th career win against the Chicago Cubs.