Eleanor Gamboa (1903 - 1979)

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

In 1903, in the year that Eleanor Gamboa was born, the first World Series of American baseball was played between October 1st and 13th. The Boston Americans of the American League played the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. Boston came back from a three game to one deficit, winning the final four games to capture the title - such a large comeback wouldn't be repeated by a team until 1925. (A total of eight games were played.)

In 1914, when she was only 11 years old, 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 1949, at the age of 46 years old, Eleanor was alive when comedian Milton Berle hosted the first telethon show. It raised $1,100,000 for cancer research and lasted 16 hours. The next day, newspapers, in writing about the event, first used the word "telethon."

In 1955, Eleanor was 52 years old when on September 10th the TV show "Gunsmoke" debuted on CBS. It went on to be television's longest-running western. Matt Dillon, Chester, Doc Adams, and Miss Kitty became household names.

In 1979, in the year of Eleanor Gamboa's passing, on March 28th, a partial nuclear meltdown occurred at the power plant at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania. Radiation leaked into the environment, resulting in a rating of 5 on a scale of 7 ("Accident With Wider Consequences") . It ended up costing $1 billion to clean up the site.