Edward Bolsetzian (1914 - 2008)

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

In 1914, in the year that Edward Bolsetzian was born, in August, the world's first red and green traffic lights were installed at the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland Ohio. The electric traffic light had been invented by a policeman in Salt Lake City Utah in 1912.

In 1920, by the time he was merely 6 years old, the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, passed both Houses of Congress and was sent to the States to ratify. In August, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the Amendment and it became law eight days later. Mississippi ratified it in 1984.

In 1943, at the age of 29 years old, Edward was alive when on September 3rd, the Armistice of Cassibile was signed in Sicily. Under the terms of the Armistice, Italy surrendered to the Allied Powers. After the Armistice was made public on September 8th, Germany attacked and occupied Italy. It took 20 months of fighting for the Allies to reach the northern borders of Italy.

In 1978, Edward was 64 years old when on November 18th, Jim Jones's Peoples Temple followers committed mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana - where they had moved, from San Francisco, as a group. Jones was the leader of the cult and ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch, which they did. Whole families (women and children included) died - more than 900 people in all.

In 1994, at the age of 80 years old, Edward was alive when on May 6th, the Channel Tunnel or "Chunnel" was officially opened. The Chunnel is a railway tunnel beneath the English Channel that connects Great Britain to mainland France. Original plans for such a tunnel were developed in 1802 and approved by Napoleon Bonaparte but the British rejected the plan fearing that Napoleon would use the railway to invade.