Frank Pislak (1878 - 1973)

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

In 1878, in the year that Frank Pislak was born, on June 15th, photographer Eadweard Muybridge - at the request of Leland Stanford - produced the first sequence of stop-motion still photographs. Stanford contended that a galloping horse had all four feet off the ground. Only photos of a horse at a gallop would settle the question and, using 12 cameras and a series of photos, Muybridge settled the question: Stanford was right. Muybridge's use of several cameras and stills led to motion pictures.

In 1901, Frank was 23 years old when the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. Chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896, had provided in his will for prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine, who have produced the most distinguished literary work of an idealist tendency, and who have contributed the most toward world peace. The winners in 1901 were: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for physics, Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff for chemistry, Emil Adolf von Behring for physiology or medicine, Sully Prudhomme for literature, and Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy for peace.

In 1920, he was 42 years old when on January 1, over 6000 people were arrested and put in prison because they were suspected of being communists. . Many had to be released in a few weeks and only 3 guns were found in their homes. The U.S. Department of Justice "red hunt" netted thousands of "radicals" and suspected "communists" and aliens were deported. But the "hunt" ended after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.

In 1961, by the time he was 83 years old, on January 20th, John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States. He had previously been a U.S. Senator and a Congressman, both from the state of Massachusetts, as well as a Naval lieutenant in World War II.

In 1973, in the year of Frank Pislak's passing, on August 15th, amidst rising calls for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon, Congress imposed an end to the bombing of Cambodia.