Jackson’s Birthday – Today In Southern History

Jan 21, 2026

Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was born in Clarksburg, Virginia.

1698 – French missionary Father de Montigny reached the Tensas Indian village on the Mississippi River in Louisiana and stayed with them to instruct them in Catholic Christianity.
1789 – Georgetown College was established as the first Catholic college in the U.S. in Washington, DC.
1861 – Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and 4 other southern senators resigned after their states seceded.
1880 – Memphis, Tennessee started operation of the first sewage disposal system separate from storm drains in the U.S. designed George E. Waring,Jr.
1987 – B.B. King donated his 7,000 record collection to the University of Mississippi.
1997 – A judge in Fairfax, Virginia sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an attack outside the CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three other people.

Today In Southern History