Agnes Simester (1897 - 1976)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Agnes' lifetime.

In 1897, in the year that Agnes Simester was born, in the January 22nd issue of "Engineering", the word "computer" was first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device. Previously - since the 17th century - the term computer meant "one who computes" and referred to human beings who worked with numbers.

In 1909, she was merely 12 years old when the New York Times published the first movie review. It was a report on D.W. Griffith's movie "Pippa Passes" also called "The Song of Conscience", a silent film. The review said that this work was moving away from "lurid material that attracted the wrath of censors and concerned citizens and toward more respectable ends. The movie was the story of a young female factory worker, on her day off, wandering and singing - thus changing the hearts of those around her towards good.

In 1947, at the age of 50 years old, Agnes was alive when in June, the Marshall Plan was proposed to help European nations recover economically from World War II. It passed the conservative Republican Congress in March of 1948. After World War I, the economic devastation of Germany caused by burdensome reparations payments led to the rise of Hitler. The Allies didn't want this to happen again and the Marshall Plan was devised to make sure that those conditions didn't arise again.

In 1967, Agnes was 70 years old when on November 7th, President Johnson signed legislation passed by Congress that created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which would later become PBS and NPR. The legislation required CPB to operate with a "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature".

In 1976, in the year of Agnes Simester's passing, The United States celebrated the Bicentennial of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It was a year long celebration, with the biggest events taking place on July 4th.