We just discovered this very cool web site where you can read about all of the interesting things that happened the year you were born.....or whatever year you'd like to know more about. Click on www.infoplease.com/yearbybyear.html Imagine the possibilities! You could present the information as part of a birthday present to a loved one or flesh out a biography of an ancestor you're writing or create a timeline of someone's life or teach your children about world events when they were born. The web site includes dates from 1900 up until this year. Below is a sample, taken from the year 1923.
World Events for 1923
U.S. Events
- President Warren G. Harding suddenly falls ill (July 28) while returning from a trip to Alaska and is rushed to San Francisco, where he dies on Aug. 2.
- The second Ku Klux Klan movement in U.S. history grows, stirring widespread controversy and violence.
Economics
Federal spending: $3.14 billion
Consumer Price Index: 17.1
Unemployment: 2.4%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.02
Sports
World Series
NY Yankees d. NY Giants (4-2)
Stanley Cup
Ottawa d. Vancouver (3-1)
Ottawa d. Edmonton (2-0)
Wimbledon
Women: Suzanne Lenglen d. K. McKane (6-2 6-2)
Men: Bill Johnston d. F. Hunter (6-0 6-3 6-1)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Zev
NCAA Football Champions
Illinois (CFRA, HF) (8-0-0) & Michigan (NCF) (8-0-0)
Entertainment
Entertainment Awards
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: One of Ours, Willa Cather
Drama: Icebound, Owen Davis
Nobel Prize for Literature: William B. Yeats (Ireland)
Miss America: Mary Campbell (OH)
More Entertainment Awards... Events
- Russian immigrant Vladimir Kosma Zworykin patents the iconoscope, the first television transmission tube. He patents the first color tube in 1925.
- A.C. Nielsen Company is founded and provides measurements of radio audiences for advertisers.
- "Queen of the Blues" Bessie Smith records her first song, "Down Hearted Blues," which becomes an immediate success.
- Harlem's Cotton Club opens and presents all-black performances to white-only audiences. Entertainers will include Lena Horne, the Nicholas Brothers, and Cab Calloway.
- German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin becomes film's first canine star.
- Time Magazine debuts.
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Fritz Pregl (Austria), for method of microanalysis of organic substances discovered by him
Physics: Robert A. Millikan (US), for work on elementary charge of electricity and photoelectric phenomena
Physiology or Medicine: Sir Frederick Banting (Canada) and John J. R. Macleod (Scotland), for discovery of insulin
- A whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine is developed.
- Harry Steenbock discovers that radiating food with ultraviolet light adds vitamin D.
- Scopolamine, previously used as a childbirth anesthetic, is found to act as a "truth" serum after tests on convicts at San Quentin Prison.
In 1994 a new tradition began for the Easter Egg. Each of the United States sends a decorated Easter egg to the White House for display, coordinated by the American Egg Board. (Who knew such a Board existed!) Wouldn't this be a fun, new tradition for your family? Have all the siblings' families decorate a special egg and then display them all at Grandma's during Easter dinner!
