Elva X Wyly (1916 - 1995)

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

In 1916, in the year that Elva X Wyly was born, the Battle of Verdun was fought from February through December. It was the largest and longest battle of World War I, lasting 303 days. The original estimates were 714,231 casualties - 377,231 French and 337,000 German, an average of 70,000 casualties a month. Current estimates are even larger. The Battle of the Somme was also fought from July through September of the same year. Original estimates were 485,000 British and French casualties and 630,000 German casualties.

In 1945, at the age of 29 years old, Elva was alive when on April 12th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia. At 1p, he was sitting for a portrait when he complained that he had a "terrific pain" in the back of his head and collapsed. A doctor was summoned and the doctor gave him a shot of adrenaline into his heart. It didn't help and he was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. A slow moving train took him back to Washington D.C. while thousands of mourners lined the tracks. He was buried at his home in Hyde Park, New York.

In 1979, by the time she was 63 years old, on November 4th, Iranian militant students seized the US embassy in Teheran and held 52 American citizens and diplomats hostage for 444 days. They were released at the end of the inauguration speech of the newly elected Ronald Reagan.

In 1989, by the time she was 73 years old, on January 20th, George Herbert Walker Bush became the 41st President of the United States. Previously Ronald Regan's Vice President, he ran against Michael Dukakis and won the popular vote by 53.4% to 45.6%.

In 1995, in the year of Elva X Wyly's passing, on May 19th, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil - before 9/11 - took place in Oklahoma City. A truck bomb went off outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown - killing 68 people, injuring more than 680 others, and destroying one-third of the building. The most disturbing images were of children - a daycare center was hit by the bomb. The deadliest incident of domestic terrorism ever, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier were convicted of the bombing.