Dementia for 2

Next month my grandmother will be a whopping 93 years old!! I just can't believe it. We are planning a party with family and just a few friends. She knows her birthday is coming up soon, she just doesn't remember the exact date.

I thought I would post some interesting things that happened the year my grandmother was born just to put things in perspective for all of us.
January 1 – The Royal Army Medical Corps first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled.

January 1 – Impressionist painter Monet paints his Water Lilies series.

January 24 – In Browning, Montana, the temperature drops from +6.7°C to -48.8°C (44°F to -56°F) in one day, the greatest change ever on record for a 3 day-hour period.

February 11 - Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.

March 8-9 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 12 U.S. soldiers. A garrison of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.

March 20 – At the age of 32, Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy brought to America as part of a racist exhibition, builds a ceremonial fire, chips off the caps on his teeth, performs a final tribal dance, and shoots himself in the heart with a stolen pistol.

April 20 – The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in 11 innings.

April – The light switch is invented by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg.

May 20 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting (Boy with Baby Carriage).

May 21 – Britain initiates daylight saving time.

May 22 – The case of United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola is decided.

June 5 - Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

June 15 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.

July 1 – November 18 – World War I – More than 1 million soldiers die during the Battle of the Somme, including 60,000 casualties for the British Commonwealth on the first day.

July 1 – July 12: At least one shark mauls 5 swimmers along 80 miles (130 km) of New Jersey coastline during the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, resulting in 4 deaths and the survival of one youth who required limb amputation. This event is the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write Jaws.

August 7 – World War I: Portugal joins the Allies.

August 25 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs legislation creating the National Park Service.

September 2 – British pilot William Leefe-Robinson becomes the first to shoot down a German airship over Britain.

September 13 – Mary, a circus elephant, is hanged in the town of Erwin, Tennessee for killing her handler, Walter "Red" Eldridge.

October 16 – Margaret Sanger opens the first U.S. birth control clinic -a forerunner of Planned Parenthood.

October 21 – Friedrich Adler shoots Karl von Stürgkh, Prime Minister of Austria.

November 7 - Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.

November 21 – The White Star Liner HMHS Britannic, sister ship of the RMS Olympic and the legendary RMS Titanic, sinks in the Mediterranean Sea after hitting a mine. 30 lives are lost.

December 29 – Grigori Rasputin is murdered by two Romanov family members.

There were also quite a few notable births other than my fabulous grandmother that year. Among them were:

January 9 – Peter Twinn, English mathematician and World War II code-breaker (d. 2004)
February 18 – Maria Altmann, Austrian Holocaust survivor and heiress
February 23 – Retta Scott, first female Disney animator to be credited on a feature film (d. 1990)
February 26 – Jackie Gleason, American comedian (d. 1987)
March 29 – Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Minnesota and Presidential candidate (d. 2005)
April 5 – Gregory Peck, American actor (d. 2003)
April 28 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian automobile manufacturer (d. 1993)
July 1 – Olivia de Havilland, British-born American actress
July 4 – Iva Toguri D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose") (d. 2006)
October 14 – C. Everett Koop, United States Surgeon General
November 4 – Walter Cronkite, American television journalist (d. 2009)
November 14 – Sherwood Schwartz, American television writer and producer
December 9 – Kirk Douglas, American actor
December 18 – Betty Grable, American actress (d. 1973)

So as you can see, a lot happened that year. Many other things were invented or came to pass but I just wanted to give you the highlights. WWI was in full swing and a lot of men were losing their lives all over the world. My grandmother was too young to remember most of that but she was a young girl during WWII. She still never talked about all that even when she could remember.

Even though it is still a week away,I know she will have a great birthday and I am looking forward to spending the day with her and the rest of my family.