First In Flight – Today In Southern History

Dec 17, 2025

Orville and Wilbur Wright took the first successful man-powered airplane flights at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1777 – France recognized American independence.
1821 – Kentucky abolished debtors’ prisons.
1860 – The South Carolina Secession Convention convened at First Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina.
1862 – General Wade Hampton’s Confederate cavalry raided Federal supply depots at Occoquan, Virginia.
1862 – General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order #11, expelling Jews from Tennessee.
1976 – WTCG-TV, Atlanta, Georgia, changed its call letters to WTBS, and was uplinked via satellite, becoming the first commercial TV station to cover the entire U.S.
1988 – The USS Tennessee SSBN-73, the first nuclear sub to carry Trident 2 missiles was commissioned with its home port of King’s Bay, Georgia.

Today In Southern History