Eric Holmgren (1893 - 1982)

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

In 1893, in the year that Eric Holmgren was born, on February 1st, Thomas Edison's motion picture studio on his laboratory grounds in West Orange New Jersey was completed. The studio was called "Black Maria" and the first movie made and viewed in it was of 3 people pretending to be blacksmiths.

In 1952, he was 59 years old when on July 2, Dr. Jonas E. Salk tested the first dead-virus polio vaccine on 43 children. The worst epidemic of polio had broken out that year - in the U.S. there were 58,000 cases reported. Of these, 3,145 people had died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.

In 1969, by the time he was 76 years old, 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.

In 1976, when he was 83 years old, on August 4th, a mysterious illness struck an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Within a week, 25 people had died and 130 people had been hospitalized. It was the first known instance of what came to be called "Legionnaires Disease."

In 1982, in the year of Eric Holmgren's passing, on September 14th, Princess Grace of Monaco (American actress Grace Kelly), 52, died of injuries when her car plunged off a mountain road. Her 17 year old daughter, Stephanie, was also in the car and suffered serious injuries but recovered. It's believed that the accident was caused when Princess Grace, who was driving, had a mild stroke.