From the Sunday, Feb. 18, 1968 issue of the "Daily Northwest Alabamian"– state Rep. Rankin Fite placing the first-ever 911
call from the mayor’s office–that’s Mayor James Whitt behind him.

February 16, 1968 saw the first official "911" call placed in the
United States. Now taken for granted as first course of action
in the event of emergency by nearly all of the nation’s 327
million people, 911 is a relatively recent invention and was
still not standard across the United States for many years
after its adoption by Congress.

As telephones became common in U.S. households, fire
departments around the country recommended establishing
a single, simple number to be dialed in the event of a fire or
other emergency. A similar system had been implemented in
the United Kingdom decades earlier, in 1936, when the code
999 was chosen for emergency telegraph and phone
communications.

MIKE GRACIA

B.W. Gallagher (left), president of the Alabama Telephone
Co., displays the red telephone installed at the Haleyville.
Ala. police station to receive the first 911 call.

MIKE GRACIA

During the Civil War on this day in 1862, about 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donelson, TN.

Ulysses S. Grant (Hiram Ulysses Grant)
(April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885)

MIKE GRACIA

During the U.S. Civil War on this day in 1862, about 14,000 soldier’s 
of the Confederate army surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at
Fort Donelson, TN.

The operator of a crematory in Noble, GA, was arrested on this day in 2002, after dozens of corpses were found stacked in storage sheds
and scattered around in the surrounding woods.

Ray Brent Marsh addresses the court during sentencing proceedings
in Walker County Court in LaFayette, Ga.

John Demjanjuk (above) went on trial in Jerusalem on this day in
1987. He was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible", a guard at the Treblinka concentration camp. He was convicted, but the Israeli
Supreme Court overturned the ruling.

Former prison camp guard John Demjanjuk. 

On this day in 1968, America’s first 911 emergency telephone
system was inaugurated in Haleyville, AL.

Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite (right) went to City Hall
and called U.S. Representative Tom Bevill at the local police station
for the first 911 call.  

On this day in 2005, The NHL announced the cancellation
of the 2004-2005 season due to a labor dispute. It was the
first time a major sports league in North America lost an
entire season to a labor dispute.

National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman
announced the cancellation of the 2004-05 season.

MIKE GRACIA

The first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, AL
when a test call was placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite,
from  the Haleyville, Alabama, City Hall, to U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill, at the city’s
police station located in the same building.