Arlie Elkins (1902 - 1986)

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

In 1902, in the year that Arlie Elkins was born, the world famous Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, made the first gramophone recording by a popular singer. Accompanied by only a piano, his voice recordings became a big seller and did much to popularize the new-fangled gramophone. He had to sing into a metal "horn" that relayed his voice to a metal disc. And the songs had to be under 4 and a half minutes!

In 1919, Arlie was 17 years old when in the summer and early autumn, race riots erupted in 26 U.S. cities, resulting in hundreds of deaths and even more people being badly hurt. In most cases, African-Americans were the victims. It was called the "Red Summer". Men who were returning from World War I needed jobs and there was competition for those jobs among the races. Tension was heightened by the use by many companies of blacks as strikebreakers.

In 1924, this person was 22 years old when J. Edgar Hoover, at the age of 29, was appointed the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation by Calvin Coolidge (which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation). The Bureau had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents. A former employee of the Justice Department, Hoover accepted his new position on the proviso that the bureau was to be completely divorced from politics and that the director report only to the attorney general.

In 1956, at the age of 54 years old, Arlie was alive when on May 20th, the U.S. tested the first hydrogen bomb dropped from a plane over Bikini Atoll. Previously, hydrogen bombs had only been tested on the ground. The Atomic Age moved forward.

In 1986, in the year of Arlie Elkins's passing, on September 8th, the Oprah Winfrey Show went into national syndication. A popular talk show, it was number 1 in the ratings since its debut. The last show aired on May 25, 2011.