Amanda Breitbach (1899 - 1985)

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

In 1899, in the year that Amanda Breitbach was born, the meaning of Chinese "oracle bones" was rediscovered. Farmers in China had been turning up the bones in their fields for generations but most often they were ground up and sold as medicine. The chancellor of the Imperial Academy and a friend noticed, before they ground the bones, that they had writing. The bones had been used around the second millennium BC for divination.

In 1917, Amanda was 18 years old when in April, the U.S. entered World War I, declaring war against Germany. President Wilson had previously declared neutrality in the war - a position supported by the majority of Americans - but after Germany declared that they would sink all ships trading with Great Britain and sunk U.S. ships, public opinion began to change. Then the Lusitania was sunk, killing 1,201 - including 128 Americans - and more U.S. ships were sunk. The U.S. could stand aside no longer.

In 1933, by the time she was 34 years old, on March 4th, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the 32nd President of the United States. He was elected four times (equaled by no other President) and guided the United States through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War 2. His wife was his cousin Eleanor Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt's niece) who President Truman called "First Lady of the World". Some of the major programs that survive from his presidency are the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act (The National Labor Relations Act of 1935) , the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security.

In 1944, when she was 45 years old, on November 7th, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a fourth term as President of the United States. Running against Thomas Dewey, Governor of New York, Roosevelt won 53.4 of the popular vote, Dewey got 45.9%.

In 1985, in the year of Amanda Breitbach's passing, on March 15th, the first internet domain name was registered - Symbolics.com. Symbolics, Inc., a spinoff of the MIT AI Lab, was a computer manufacturer headquartered in Massachusetts. The company no longer exists and the domain name was sold 25 years later.