Fred Mather (1885 - 1981)

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

In 1885, in the year that Fred Mather was born, on January 24th, the Fenians - Irish Nationalists - set off dynamite bombs in the House of Commons chamber, Westminster Hall, and the Tower of London. Four civilians and two policemen were injured.

In 1899, at the age of only 14 years old, Fred was alive when the meaning of Chinese "oracle bones" was rediscovered. Farmers in China had been turning up the bones in their fields for generations but most often they were ground up and sold as medicine. The chancellor of the Imperial Academy and a friend noticed, before they ground the bones, that they had writing. The bones had been used around the second millennium BC for divination.

In 1950, he was 65 years old when on October 2, Charlie Brown appeared in the first Peanuts comic strip - created by Charles Schultz - and he was the only character in that strip. That year, Schultz said that Charlie was 4 years old, but Charlie aged a bit through the years.

In 1961, he was 76 years old when 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 1981, in the year of Fred Mather's passing, on August 1st, MTV debuted. It was the first music video TV channel. The first music video played was the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" - the second was Pat Benatar's "You Better Run".