Edmund J Klawinski (1916 - 2004)

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

In 1916, in the year that Edmund J Klawinski was born, in June, the U.S. Congress authorized a plan to expand the armed forces over the next five years. Called the National Defense Act of 1916, the national law expanded the National Guard and Army (the Army added an aviation unit), created the Reserves, and gave the President expanded authority to federalize the National Guard. It also allowed the government to stockpile, in advance, materiel to be used in wartime.

In 1930, he was just 14 years old when on August 6th, N.Y. Supreme Court Judge Joseph Crater went through papers in his office, destroyed some of them, withdrew all his money from the bank - $5,150, sold his stock, met friends at a restaurant for dinner and disappeared after getting into a taxi (or walking down the street - his friends' testimony later changed). His disappearance was reported to the police on September 3rd - almost a month later. His wife didn't know what happened, his fellow Justices had no idea, and his mistresses (he had several) said that they didn't know. While his disappearance was front page news, his fate was never discovered and after 40 years the case was closed, still without knowing if Crater was dead or alive.

In 1943, when he was 27 years old, on June 20th through June 22nd, the Detroit Race Riot erupted at Belle Isle Park. The rioting spread throughout the city (made worse by false rumors of attacks on blacks and whites) and resulted in the deployment of 6,000 Federal troops. 34 people were killed, (25 of them black) - mostly by white police or National Guardsmen, 433 were wounded (75 percent of them black) and an estimated $2 million of property was destroyed. The same summer, there were riots in Beaumont, Texas and Harlem, New York.

In 1972, Edmund was 56 years old when on June 17th, 5 men were arrested by police in an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C.’s Watergate hotel. The burglars were found to be paid by cash from a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President - the official organization of President Nixon's campaign.

In 1999, by the time he was 83 years old, the fear that Y2K (year 2000) would cause the failure of computers worldwide when clocks didn't properly update to January 1st, 2000 became near panic. While some computer systems and software did have problems, the panic was unfounded and computer life went on.