Cecile Balmer (1910 - 1981)

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

In 1910, in the year that Cecile Balmer was born, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated. U.S. publisher W.D. Boyce was visiting England when he became lost in the London fog. An unknown Boy Scout helped him find his way out, declining a tip (he said that he was a Boy Scout and was doing his good deed for the day). Boyce was so impressed that he incorporated the Boy Scouts of America when he returned home. Its purpose was "to teach boys patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred values."

In 1927, Cecile was 17 years old when in September, the Columbia Broadcasting System (later called CBS) became the second national radio network in the U.S. The first broadcast was a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from radio station WOR in Newark, New Jersey.

In 1933, when she was 23 years old, on December 5th, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. The 21st Amendment said "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed." Alcohol was legal again! It was the only amendment to the Constitution approved for the explicit purpose of repealing a previously existing amendment. South Carolina was the only state to reject the Amendment.

In 1978, when she was 68 years old, on November 18th, Jim Jones's Peoples Temple followers committed mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana - where they had moved, from San Francisco, as a group. Jones was the leader of the cult and ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch, which they did. Whole families (women and children included) died - more than 900 people in all.

In 1981, in the year of Cecile Balmer's passing, on January 20th, Ronald Reagan became the 40th President of the United States. He ran against the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, and won 50.7% of the popular vote to Carter's 41.0%.