Dominick Spina 1912 - 1968
Dominick Spina's Biography
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Dominick Spina
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1912 - 1968 World Events
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In 1912, in the year that Dominick Spina was born, Arizona was admitted to the United States in February (on Valentine's Day). It became the 48th state in the Union. Previously a Spanish - then Mexican - territory, the U.S. paid $15 million dollars for the area in 1848. Arizona was the last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the United States.
In 1925, at the age of just 13 years old, Dominick was alive when in July, the Scopes Trial - often called the Scopes Monkey Trial - took place, prosecuting a substitute teacher for teaching evolution in school. Tennessee had enacted a law that said it was "unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school". William Jennings Bryan headed the prosecution and Clarence Darrow headed the defense. The teacher was found guilty and fined $100. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee upheld the law but overturned the guilty verdict.
In 1931, he was 19 years old when on May 1st, the Empire State Building opened in New York City. At 1,454 feet (including the roof and antenna), it was the tallest building in the world until the World Trade Center's North Tower was built in 1970. (It is now the 34th tallest.) Opening at the beginning of the Great Depression, most of the offices in the Empire State Building remained unoccupied for years and the observation deck was an equal source of revenue and kept the building profitable.
In 1950, he was 38 years old when in February, Joe McCarthy gave a speech alleging that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who worked in the State Department. He went on to chair a committee that investigated not only the State Department but also the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army for communist spies - until he was condemned by the U.S. Senate in 1954.
In 1968, in the year of Dominick Spina's passing, on January 31st, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, a turning point in the Vietnam War. 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces swarmed into South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese and US troops held off the offensive but it was such fierce fighting that the U.S. public began to turn against the war.
