Dennis Donovan (1877 - 1967)

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

In 1877, in the year that Dennis Donovan was born, on January 8th, the Battle of Wolf Mountain occurred in southern Montana Territory. Crazy Horse, Two Moon, and their warriors fought the United States Cavalry. The battle was a tactical draw and by May, Crazy Horse and his followers had surrendered at Camp Robinson.

In 1897, by the time he was 20 years old, on March 4th, William McKinley became the 25th President of the United States. He had beaten William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 election by 51% to 46.7% in the popular vote. Six months into his second term as President, McKinley was assassinated.

In 1905, at the age of 28 years old, Dennis was alive when the Niagara Falls conference was held in Fort Erie, Ontario. Led by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, a group of African-American men met in opposition to racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Booker T. Washington had been calling for policies of accommodation and conciliation and these two men, along with the others who attended the conference, felt that this was accomplishing nothing. The group was the precursor to the NAACP.

In 1922, Dennis was 45 years old when the Reparations Commission assessed German liability for World War 1 at 132 billion gold marks (over $32 billion U.S. dollars at the time). This led to hyperinflation in Germany and created the political and social atmosphere in which Hitler was able to rise to power.

In 1967, in the year of Dennis Donovan'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".