The Stainless Banner – Today In Southern History

May 01, 2026

1805 – The state of Virginia passed a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk imprisonment or deportation.
1807 – Confederate General John B. Magruder was born in Port Royal, Virginia.
1833 – A census of the Creek tribe’s upper towns registered 14,142 people, including 445 Negro slaves.
1841 – The first emigrant wagon train left Independence, Missouri, for California.
1852 – Frontier legend Calamity Jane was born as Martha Jane Canary in Princeton Missouri.
1863 – The Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia began.
1863 – The Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi.
1864 – The Battle of Alexandria, Louisiana in the Red River Campaign began.
1867 – Black voter registration began active Reconstruction in the South.
1877 – U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.
1889 – Asa Candler published a full-page advertisement in The Atlanta Journal proclaiming his wholesale and retail drug business as the “sole proprietors of Coca-Cola/.
1960 – A U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers of Jenkins, Kentucky was taken prisoner.
1967 - Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu
1976 – The Empress Lilly, a replica of a Mississippi River paddle wheeler, was dedicated at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
1991 – Texas Ranger Nolan Ryan pitched a record 7th no-hitter beating Toronto

Today In Southern History