Eliza F. (McWhorter) McCracken (1874 - 1964)

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

In 1874, in the year that Eliza F. (McWhorter) McCracken was born, on September 14th, the Battle of Liberty Place occurred in New Orleans - the capital of Louisiana. Some members of the previous Confederate Army assembled for the purpose of "driving the usurpers from power" and the Republican Governor - William P. Kellogg - was physically driven from his office. The former Confederates temporarily replaced him with (the former) Democratic Governor John McEnery. Federal forces arrived, put down the insurrection, and five days later the legally elected government was restored.

In 1890, Eliza was 16 years old when on June 1st, the U.S. Census Bureau started tabulating census returns with punch cards. Herman Hollerith's "tabulating machine" used punch cards to more quickly compute census information, taking the time to get census results from 8 years in 1880 to 6 years for the 1890 census. Hollerith's company eventually became IBM.

In 1928, she was 54 years old when Mickie Mouse was born! He first appeared in Disney's Steamboat Willie, along with Minnie. Although they were in two previous shorts, this was the first to be distributed. Steamboat Willie took advantage of the new technology and was a "talkie" - music was coordinated with the animation. It became the most popular cartoon of its day.

In 1942, Eliza was 68 years old when on November 28th at 10:15p, a nightclub in Boston, the Cocoanut Grove, caught fire. The origins of the fire are unknown but it killed 492 people - the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. Hundreds more were injured. The disaster was so shocking that it replaced World War II in the headlines and lead to reforms in safety standards and codes.

In 1964, in the year of Eliza F. (McWhorter) McCracken's passing, on February 9th, the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. 73 million people watched - although the Beatles couldn't be heard because of the loud screaming of the female teenage audience.