Doris Irene Dukes (1919 - 2009)

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

In 1919, in the year that Doris Irene Dukes was born, in the summer and early autumn, race riots erupted in 26 U.S. cities, resulting in hundreds of deaths and even more people being badly hurt. In most cases, African-Americans were the victims. It was called the "Red Summer". Men who were returning from World War I needed jobs and there was competition for those jobs among the races. Tension was heightened by the use by many companies of blacks as strikebreakers.

In 1923, by the time she was merely 4 years old, the Teapot Dome scandal became the subject of an investigation by Senator Walsh and severely damaged the reputation of the Harding administration. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison. At the time, the Teapot Dome scandal was seen as "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics".

In 1970, by the time she was 51 years old, on April 10th, Paul McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles. (John Lennon had previously told the band that he was leaving but hadn't publicly announced it.) By the end of the year, each Beatle had his own album.

In 1989, by the time she was 70 years old, on November 9th, the Berlin Wall fell. The Wall was built by the East Germans to keep East Berliners from escaping into West Berlin, separating families and friends. When the head of the East German Communist Party announced that day that East Berliners could cross whenever they pleased, happy crowds surged across the border. People brought tools and took parts of the hated wall.

In 1990, Doris was 71 years old when after 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela, the leader of the movement to end South African apartheid was released on February 11th 1990.