Dora M Greenwood (1907 - 2002)

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

In 1907, in the year that Dora M Greenwood was born, the Monongah coal mining disaster occurred on December 6th, happening at the Fairmont Coal Company’s No. 6 and No. 8 mines.. Over 361 miners were killed. Because there was no breathing apparatus at the time to help rescuers, recovery efforts were greatly hampered. It is considered the worst mining disaster in American history and led to government oversight in mining practices.

In 1928, at the age of 21 years old, Dora was alive when aviatrix Amelia Earhart, age 31, became the first woman to fly solo across North America and back in August. In June, she had been part of a 3 man crew that flew the Atlantic Ocean but since she had no instrument training, she couldn't fly the plane - she kept the flight log. The North American flight became one of her many "firsts" as a female pilot.

In 1933, when she was 26 years old, Frances Perkins became the first woman to hold a cabinet-level position, appointed by President Roosevelt to serve as Secretary of Labor. She told him that her priorities would be a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, unemployment compensation, worker’s compensation, abolition of child labor, direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized federal employment service, and universal health insurance. President Roosevelt approved of all of them and most them were implemented during his terms as President. She served until his death in 1945.

In 1964, when she was 57 years old, on June 11th, activist Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in South Africa for conspiring to overthrow the state (because of his numerous anti-apartheid activities). He served 27 years in prison.

In 1993, she was 86 years old when on February 26th, a truck bomb exploded in the garage under the North Tower of the World Trade Center. While the bomb didn't do what was planned (collapse the North Tower into the South Tower), it did kill six people and injured thousands of people.