Frank Polk (1874 - 1963)

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

In 1874, in the year that Frank Polk was born, on May 20th, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were approved for a patent for "blue jeans with copper rivets". They charged $13.50 per dozen jeans. Although the term "jeans" was first used in 1795 - in Italy - using rivets to reinforce stress points in jeans such as pockets and the bottom of the fly was an original idea..

In 1885, by the time he was only 11 years old, on February 16th, the first Dow Jones Industrial Average was published by Charles Dow, who also founded the Wall Street Journal. The index was 62.76. It represented 12 stocks - American Cotton Oil, American Sugar, American Tobacco, Chicago Gas, Distilling & Cattle Feeding, General Electric, Laclede Gas, National Lead, North American, Tennessee Coal and Iron, U.S. Leather pfd. and U.S. Rubber.

In 1932, he was 58 years old when five years to the day after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart flew solo from Newfoundland to Ireland, the first woman to cross the Atlantic solo and the first to replicate Lindbergh's feat. She flew over 2,000 miles in just under 15 hours.

In 1945, he was 71 years old when on April 12th, President Roosevelt died of natural causes and Harry S. Truman, his Vice-President, became the 33rd President of the United States.

In 1963, in the year of Frank Polk's passing, on November 22nd, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th President of the United States when President John Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Johnson was sworn in on the plane carrying Kennedy's body back to Washington D.C.