Alfred James Morris (1888 - 1970)

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

In 1888, in the year that Alfred James Morris was born, Irishman John Robert Gregg published a pamphlet in the U.S., teaching his first version of shorthand - Gregg shorthand. When he improved on the first version and published it 5 years later, Gregg shorthand became popular.

In 1934, at the age of 46 years old, Alfred was alive when on June 6th, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was formed as a response to the stock market crash of 1929 and the continuing Great Depression. Previously, the states regulated the offering and sales of stocks - called "blue sky" laws. They were largely ineffective. Roosevelt created a group (one member was Joseph Kennedy, father of the future President Kennedy) who knew Wall Street well and they defined the mission and operating mode for the SEC. The new organization had broad and stringent rules and oversight and restored public confidence in the stock market in the United States.

In 1959, he was 71 years old when on August 8th, Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States. The US flag was changed to show 50 stars.

In 1961, when he was 73 years old, on May 5th, Navy Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard, Jr., made the first manned Project Mercury flight, MR-3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. He was the second man to go into space, the first was Yuri Gagarin - a Soviet cosmonaut.

In 1970, in the year of Alfred James Morris's passing, on April 10th, Paul McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles. (John Lennon had previously told the band that he was leaving but hadn't publicly announced it.) By the end of the year, each Beatle had his own album.