Bena Harris (1937 - 1976)

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

In 1937, in the year that Bena Harris was born, on May 6th, the German zeppelin the Hindenburg caught fire and blew up. The Hindenburg was a passenger ship traveling to Frankfurt Germany. It tried to dock in New Jersey, one of the stops, and something went wrong - it blew up. Thirty-six people were killed out of the 97 on board - 13 passengers, 22 crewmen, and one ground worker. The reasons for the explosion are still disputed.

In 1942, Bena was just 5 years old when on February 19th, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This authorized the Secretary of War to "prescribe certain areas as military zones." On March 21st, he signed Public Law 503 which was approved after an hour discussion in the Senate and 30 minutes in the House. The Law provided for enforcement of his Executive Order. This cleared the way for approximately 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry to be evicted from the West Coast and to be held in concentration camps and other confinement sites across the country. In Hawaii, a few thousand were detained. German and Italian Americans in the U.S. were also confined.

In 1950, at the age of merely 13 years old, Bena was alive when on October 2, Charlie Brown appeared in the first Peanuts comic strip - created by Charles Schultz - and he was the only character in that strip. That year, Schultz said that Charlie was 4 years old, but Charlie aged a bit through the years.

In 1966, at the age of 29 years old, Bena was alive when on July 1st, Medicare became available after President Johnson signed into law the Medicare Act in 1965. President Truman had received the first Medicare card since he had been the first to propose national healthcare law. insurance.

In 1976, in the year of Bena Harris's passing, on August 4th, a mysterious illness struck an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Within a week, 25 people had died and 130 people had been hospitalized. It was the first known instance of what came to be called "Legionnaires Disease."