Claude's immediate relatives including parents, siblings, partnerships and children in the Rains family tree.

Claude's Family

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Parent

Claude Rains Partner Child Partner Child

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Virgil Rains

Rockwell Rains

Charlotte (Eads) Rains

Charlotte Kathleen (Minehart) Rains

Gertrude Rains

James Rains with Ester Slater and Lula Miller

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

In 1889, in the year that Claude Rains was born, on May 31st, the South Fork Dam collapsed. Located in western Pennsylvania, the dam failed - sending more than 20 million tons of water into the towns below it. The flood killed more than 2,200 people in and around Johnstown. The newly formed Red Cross responded to the disaster.

In 1924, by the time he was 35 years old, 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 1942, he was 53 years old when on November 28th at 10:15p, a nightclub in Boston, the Cocoanut Grove, caught fire. The origins of the fire are unknown but it killed 492 people - the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. Hundreds more were injured. The disaster was so shocking that it replaced World War II in the headlines and lead to reforms in safety standards and codes.

In 1955, at the age of 66 years old, Claude was alive when in January, President Eisenhower sent direct aid to South Vietnam. In February, U.S. advisors were sent to train troops.

In 1967, in the year of Claude Rains's passing, 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.