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Alabama History
Moyne de Bienville, establish Fort Louis de la Mobile on a bluff twenty-seven miles up the This Mobile River from Mobile Bay. The settlement, soon known simply as "Mobile," moved to its Week In permanent site at the mouth of the Mobile Alabama River in 1711. It served as the capital of the colony of Louisiana from its founding to 1718. History January 26, 1839: Alabama's first state prison is established by legislative act. In 1842, at the Wetumpka State Penitentiary, the state's first inmate began serving time for harboring a runaway slave. The first female was incarcerated in 1850 for murder. Today, the Alabama Department of Corrections oversees a multi-facility state prison system. January 26, 1983: Alabamians are shocked and saddened when retired University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant dies suddenly from a heart attack. Bryant began coaching at Alabama in 1958 and went on to win six national championships with the team. In 1981 he became football's "winningest" coach with 315 victories. January 27, 1840: The Alabama legislature passes a joint resolution accepting the disputed boundary line with Georgia. In recognizing the line marked by a Georgia commission in 1826, the legislature stated that "a fixed and known line between this State and Georgia, is of far higher consequence to us, than the acquisition of an inconsiderable portion of territory." January 28, 1846: Montgomery is selected as capital of Alabama by the state legislature on the 16th ballot. Montgomery won the final vote largely because of promises of Montgomery city leaders to provide $75,000 for a new capitol and because of the emerging prominence of the Black Belt region of the state. January 30, 1956: With the Montgomery Bus Boycott about to enter its third month, segregationists bomb the home of boycott spokesman Martin Luther King Jr. The home sustained moderate damage, but no one was injured. The young minister addressed the large crowd that gathered after the blast, declaring, "I want it to be known the length and breadth of this land that if I am stopped this movement will not stop." January 30, 1966: Alabama experiences its coldest ever recorded temperature of -27°F at New Market in Madison County. The average low temperature during January for nearby Huntsville is around 29°.
January 31, 1902: Tallulah Bankhead, star of stage, screen, and radio in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, is born in Huntsville. The daughter of U.S.Congressman William B. Bankhead, Tallulah was most famous for her flamboyant lifestyle, throaty voice, and stage role in The Little Foxes (1939) and her part in the film Lifeboat (1943). [There is some question of the exact birthdate; this is the most generally accepted.]
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