Benjamin Briggs Goodrich (1949 - 1991)

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

In 1949, in the year that Benjamin Briggs Goodrich was born, on April 4th, NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was established. Twelve nations originally signed the North Atlantic Treaty - the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and Portugal. Greece, Turkey, and West Germany later joined. Today, there are 26 nations in NATO.

In 1959, he was merely 10 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 1965, Benjamin was 16 years old when on March 8th, the first US combat troops arrived in Vietnam. The 3500 Marines joined 23,000 "advisors" already in South Vietnam. By the end of the year, 190,000 American soldiers were in the country.

In 1986, at the age of 37 years old, Benjamin was alive when on January 28th, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. All seven crew members died. The cause of the explosion was later found to be a failed O-ring. The O-ring failure was due to the unusually cold conditions at Cape Canaveral.

In 1991, in the year of Benjamin Briggs Goodrich's passing, on January 16th, Allied forces began the first phase of Operation Desert Storm. Saddam Hussein's forces had previously invaded the sovereign state of Kuwait and the focus of the operation was to remove his Iraqi troops from Kuwait. On February 24th, the ground war began. Within 100 hours, American ground troops declared Kuwait liberated.