Eligha Mincher (1896 - 1968)

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

In 1896, in the year that Eligha Mincher was born, in April, the first study on global warming due to CO2 - carbon dioxide - in the atmosphere was published by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius. Arrhenius concluded that human activity due to the Industrial Revolution would amplify CO2 in the atmosphere, causing a greenhouse effect. His conclusions have been extensively tested in the ensuing 100+ years and are still seen to hold true.

In 1920, by the time this person was 24 years old, the Volstead Act became law. Formally called the National Prohibition Act, the Volstead Act enabled law enforcement agencies to carry out the 18th Amendment. It said that "no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act" and defined intoxicating liquor as any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol by volume.

In 1938, at the age of 42 years old, Eligha was alive when on June 25th (a Saturday) the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt (along with 120 other bills). The Act banned oppressive child labor, set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and established the maximum workweek at 44 hours. It faced a lot of opposition and in fighting for it, Roosevelt said "Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry."

In 1951, when this person was 55 years old, on February 27th, the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution (which limited the number of terms a president may serve to two) was ratified by 36 states, making it a part of the U.S. Constitution. The Amendment was both a reaction to the 4 term Roosevelt presidency and also the recognition of a long-standing tradition in American politics.

In 1968, in the year of Eligha Mincher's passing, on April 4th, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights leader, was shot and killed by an assassin in Memphis. James Earl Ray was apprehended and plead guilty to shooting Dr. King. Ray died in jail in 1998.