| Vol 8, No 99 | April 8, 1976 | Thursday Evening |
(1976)
On this date in 1976, El Paso native Phil Ochs, singer, song writer and peace activist, hanged himself in the home of his sister in Far Rockaway, New York. He was only 35. Och is best remembered through his songs. One favorite, "There But for Fortune" was a major hit for folk singer Joan Baez in 1965.
(1822)
On this date in 1822, a guard in Mexico City accidentally shot and killed James Long. Long was captured at La Bahia after mounting a raid in hopes of driving the Mexicans from Texas and declare an independant Republic of Texas.
(1837) 
On this date in 1837, Sam Houston received a long awaited divorce from Eliza Allen. Under the laws of pre-revolutionary Texas under Mexico, divorces were illegal, but now as President of the new Republic of Texas, Houston approved a law legalizing divorce. The object of his affections for four years was Anna Raguet, but Anna didn't approve of his scruples and methods he used to secure his divorce from Eliza Allen, so she left Houston, and later married Robert Irion.
(1817)
On this date in 1817, Jean Laffite, privateer, and menace to shipping along the gulf coast, organized a government for Galveston. A week later Laffite's officers swore allegiance to Mexico in it's struggle against Spanish rule.
(1864)
The Emancipation Proclamation ordered by President Lincoln in January, effectively freed slaves only in those regions still at war with the United States. Lincoln worded it very carefully because he knew that the President alone did not have the power to change the law of the land. So Lincoln used his war powers to pass the proclamation to apply the executive order only to those states still at war with the Union. The effect was, that as the Union marched farther into slave holding areas, they were followed by former slaves freed from their masters. By the end of the Civil War, there were no slaves by virtue of the Union defeating the South and freeing the slaves. However, it would take a Constitutional Amendment to make the reality on the ground in the south, the law of the Nation. On this date in 1864, the 13th Amendment which permanently bans slavery, passed the US House of Representatives.
(1922)
On this date in 1922, a tornado kills 52 people in Rowena (Runnels County).