Edward C. Pickering (1846 - 1919)

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

In 1846, in the year that Edward C. Pickering was born, on November 4th, the Donner Party was stranded in the Sierra Nevada on its way to California. The ill-fated wagon train was snowed in and couldn't get out of the mountains for 3 months. Some went for help - on foot - but the majority of the 87 people in the wagon train were stuck in heavy snow, without food. Only 48 of the original settlers survived - some by cannibalism of the dead.

In 1861, Edward was just 15 years old when on January 9th, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union. Within the same month, 5 more states seceded - Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana - and Jefferson Davis, age 52, resigned as a U.S. Senator.

In 1898, Edward was 52 years old when on March 24th, Robert Allison of Pennsylvania became the first person to buy an American-built car. He bought a Winton, which he had seen in an advertisement in Scientific American. The Winton, built in Ohio, was made by hand and came with a leather roof, padded seats, gas lamps, and tires made by B.F. Goodrich.

In 1902, when he was 56 years old, the Aswan Low Dam (the old Aswan Dam) began construction in Egypt in 1899 and was completed in 1902 - making it the largest masonry dam in the world at the time. The dam was built on the Nile River in order to conserve water and regulate flooding, allowing for population increase along the Nile.

In 1919, in the year of Edward C. Pickering's passing, in June, the Treaty of Versailles - officially ending World War I - was signed. The European Allies demanded "compensation by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea and from the air.” The requirement of compensation is seen by most as the reason for the collapse of the German economy and gave rise to the rule of Hitler.