February 2, 1920

Ann Hodges was born on this day in 1920 — and later became famous for being at the wrong place at an astronomically right time. In November 1954, she was napping in her living room in the Oak Grove community near Sylacauga, when an object crashed through her roof, smashed the radio console, and bounced off her hand and hip. That eight-and-a-half pound object was later verified to be part of a meteorite, which had triggered several aerial explosions as it fractured. Many people had witnessed the event. Hodges’ mother was in the other room, and rushed in to find her daughter, and a large hole in the roof. Scientists verified that she had indeed been struck by a rock from space — and at that time was the only known human being to survive such an encounter.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama or Bhamwiki.

Portrait of Ann Hodges, 1949. (Bhamwiki)

Rosa Hall, of the Alabama Museum of Natural History, displays a fragment of the Hodges meteorite. The meteorite struck Sylacauga resident Ann E. Hodges on the leg when it crashed through the roof of her house in 1954. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photograph by Charles Nesbitt, courtesy of The Birmingham News)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.