Dixie! – Today In Southern History
4 April 1859
On this date in 1859…
Daniel Decatur Emmett first performed DIXIE in public at Mechanics’ Hall in New York City. The song is an immediate hit in the north several months before it is heard in the South.
Other Years:
1840 – Comanche Chief Piava arranged a Prisoner exchange with the residents of San Antonio, Texas. Two captives from each side were released.
1861 – U.S. President Lincoln ordered a fleet to reinforce Fort Sumter, committing the first of several acts of war against the Confederate States of America.
1865 - US President A. Lincoln visited the fallen city of Richmond.
1932 - Oklahoma gangster Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd killed a police enforcement officer in Ohio.
1968 – Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
1974 - Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth’s home run record by hitting his 714th in Cincinnati against Jack Billingham
2008 – Four hundred and one children and 133 women were taken into state custody during a raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints-owned YFZ Ranch in Texas.
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