February 8

February 8 in the history of the Birmingham District:

2017: Jeff Sessions was confirmed as Attorney General of the United States.
2017: Publix opened a downtown supermarket at 20 Midtown.
2013: Ray Watts was named President of UAB.
2008: GreencupBooks held its grand opening.
2005: Birmingham signed a Sister City agreement with Guédiawaye, Senegal.
1979: The Don A. Hawkins Recreational Center at Roebuck-Hawkins Park was dedicated.
1892: The town of Highland was annexed into Birmingham.
1862: A group of Federal gunboats under the command of Lieutenant Seth Phelps landed at Florence and destroyed stores and steamboats there.

Tara Gray, born February 8, 1979

Births

1996: Olympia, a female giraffe born at the Birmingham Zoo.
1979: Television reporter Tara Gray was born in Birmingham.
1977: Former radio and television reporter Cyrondys Jackson was born in Birmingham.
1967: Basketball player Michael Ansley was born in Birmingham.
1958: Wrestler Sherri Martel was born in Birmingham.
1952: Protective Life CEO Johnny Johns was born in Gadsden.
1950: State Senator Gerald Allen was born in Tuscaloosa.
1934: Foreign Car Body Shop owner Earl Trammell was born.
1932: Bishop of Birmingham Raymond Boland was born in Ireland.
1926: Army aviator, police officer and computer programmer Rosamond McDuff was born in Birmingham.
1886: Birmingham Barons shortstop Roy "Slippery" Ellam was born in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
1867: Lieutenant Governor Henry Gray was born in Georgia.
1848: Jefferson County Treasurer Manoah Henry was born in Blount County.

2012: Former Brice Building Company CEO D. Riley Stuart died in Birmingham.
2000: Linebacker Derrick Thomas died from injuries suffered in an auto accident a month earlier.
1977: Longtime Bessemer High School football coach Snitz Snider died.
1946: Timothy Hood was shot to death by Bessemer Police Chief G. B. Fant following a dispute over the placement of a barrier in a segregated streetcar.
1940: Cinematographer Edward Ullman died in Los Angeles, California.
1923: Business investor George Kelley died in Wilmington, North Carolina.