Bertha Blankenbeker (1892 - 1972)

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

In 1892, in the year that Bertha Blankenbeker was born, on October 5th, the Dalton Gang was shot. The Gang was attempting to rob two banks - simultaneously - in Coffeyville Kansas but word spread of the robberies and townspeople with guns greeted them when they left the banks. Four members of the gang were killed - only Emmett Dalton survived his wounds and spent 14 years in prison.

In 1915, Bertha was 23 years old when in May, the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo. The Lusitania was a British passenger ship that was sailing from New York to Liverpool England. She sank in 18 minutes - 1,198 died and 761 survived. While travelers were the main casualty - and commodity - the Lusitania did carry wartime weapons. "Remember the Lusitania" became the rallying cry of World War 1.

In 1944, at the age of 52 years old, Bertha was alive when on December 16th, The Battle of the Bulge began in the Ardennes forest on the Western Front. Lasting for a little over a month, the battle began with a surprise attack by Germany on the Allied forces The U.S. suffered their highest casualties of any operation in World War II - 89,000 were casualties, around 8,600 killed - but Germany also severely depleted their resources and they couldn't be replaced.

In 1967, by the time she was 75 years old, on October 2nd, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black US Supreme Court justice. Marshall was the great-grandson of a slave and graduated first in his class at Howard University Law School. His nomination to the Supreme Court was approved by the Senate, 69 to 11.

In 1972, in the year of Bertha Blankenbeker's passing, on September 5th, the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, with the assistance of German neo-nazis, kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich. The attackers crept into the Olympic Village and abducted the athletes while they were sleeping. A German policeman was also killed.