Eleanor Wernet (1893 - 1969)

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

In 1893, in the year that Eleanor Wernet was born, on May 5th, a crash on the New York Stock Exchange started a depression that lasted 4 years. It was the beginning of the Panic of 1893.

In 1905, she was just 12 years old when the first movie theater opened in the United States in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was the first theater to show nothing but movies - silent films. Two men, John P. Harris and his brother-in-law Harry Davis, opened the Nickelodeon on Smithfield Street - charging 5 cents for admission. The first day, 450 people watched movies at the new theater - on the second day, more than 1500 people stood in line to get in.

In 1914, by the time she was 21 years old, in only his second big-screen appearance, Charlie Chaplin played the Little Tramp, his most famous character. The silent film was made in January and released the following year. Of the character, Chaplin said: "On the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large." The moustache was added to age his 24-year-old face without masking his expressions.

In 1945, she was 52 years old when on May 7th, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. United Mine Workers of America. The Court ruled that the underground travel time of coal miners was compensable work time under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In 1969, in the year of Eleanor Wernet's passing, one hundred countries, along with the United States and the Soviet Union signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT). It called for stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and the goal of nuclear disarmament.