Six Flags – Today In Southern History
1 August 1961
1 August 1961
On this date in 1961…
The largest and premier Southern amusement park at the time, Six Flags Over Texas opened in Arlington, Texas to much celebration and fanfare.
Other Years:
1781 – British army commanded by Lord Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, Virginia.
1789 - The US Customs office begins enforcing the Tariff Act
1863 - Cavalry actions around Brandy Station, Virginia signal the end of the Gettysburg Campaign
1867 - Black people vote for the first time in a US state election in the South under Tennessee’s occupation government resulting in a republican victory
1927 - The Carter Family made their first country music recording in Bristol, Tennessee
1945 - NY Giants outfielder Mel Ott of Gretna, Louisiana hits a historic 500th MLB home run.
1966 – Charles Whitman wounded 31 and killed 16 people from the bell tower at University of Texas in Austin before himself being killed by a police officer.
1971 - Richard Petty won the Dixie 500 in Atlanta and became the first NASCAR driver to pass $1 million in career earnings
1977 - Francis Gary Powers of Jenkinstown, KY, the CIA U-2 spy plane pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union, died from a news helicopter crash in Los Angeles
1988 - Rush Limbaugh of Cape Girardeau, Missour began his nationally syndicated radio program
1993 – The Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993 crests.
2001 – Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore installed a Ten Commandments monument in the state judiciary building, leading to a lawsuit from the Southern Poverty Law Center to have it removed and eventually his own removal from the court.
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Used to love the Southern section as a child at Six Flags over Texas. In the name of political correctness they killed it. Some side information, you and a couple of other "controversial" writers are having restacking of your articles blocked claiming "You need to log in to restack" when I am logged in. Finally bypassed by leaving substack entirely and they then bombed my email with "validation codes". One of these let me in to restack. Thanks for all you do. Writing from Occupied Missouri.