Cyril Valcourt (1898 - 1967)

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

In 1898, in the year that Cyril Valcourt was born, magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controlled 84% of the oil and pipelines in the United States. Rockefeller grew Standard Oil through the merger of several other small oil companies throughout the U.S., creating a monopoly.

In 1922, he was 24 years old when the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. on May 30th. More than 35,000 people attended the dedication including Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, and many Union and Confederate veterans - although the audience was segregated. The Memorial took 10 years to complete.

In 1943, at the age of 45 years old, Cyril was alive when on September 3rd, the Armistice of Cassibile was signed in Sicily. Under the terms of the Armistice, Italy surrendered to the Allied Powers. After the Armistice was made public on September 8th, Germany attacked and occupied Italy. It took 20 months of fighting for the Allies to reach the northern borders of Italy.

In 1951, when he was 53 years old, on February 27th, the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution (which limited the number of terms a president may serve to two) was ratified by 36 states, making it a part of the U.S. Constitution. The Amendment was both a reaction to the 4 term Roosevelt presidency and also the recognition of a long-standing tradition in American politics.

In 1967, in the year of Cyril Valcourt's passing, on November 7th, President Johnson signed legislation passed by Congress that created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which would later become PBS and NPR. The legislation required CPB to operate with a "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature".