Donald Mowry (1911 - 1987)

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

In 1911, in the year that Donald Mowry was born, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, along with four fellow Norwegian explorers. After hearing that Peary had beaten him to the North Pole, Amundsen decided to tackle the South Pole. On December 14th, he succeeded.

In 1924, by the time he was merely 13 years old, on January 21st, Vladimir Lenin, a leader of the Russian Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union died. He had survived two assassination attempts but had subsequent physical problems, suffering 3 strokes. He was in such great pain, it is said that he asked Stalin to poison him. The circumstances of his death are still disputed. He did oppose Stalin as the next leader - nonetheless, Stalin won a power struggle and ruled as a Soviet dictator until his death in 1953.

In 1960, when he was 49 years old, on May 1st, an American CIA U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Soviet Union. Powers ejected and survived but was captured. The U.S. claimed that the U-2 was a "weather plane" but Powers was convicted in the Soviet Union of espionage. He was released in 1962 after 1 year, 9 months and 10 days in prison.

In 1976, Donald was 65 years old when The United States celebrated the Bicentennial of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It was a year long celebration, with the biggest events taking place on July 4th.

In 1987, in the year of Donald Mowry's passing, on October 19th, stock exchanges around the world crashed. Beginning in Hong Kong then spreading to Europe, the crash then hit the United States. It was called Black Monday. The Dow Jones fell 508 points to 1,738.74 (22.61%).