George Greenwood (1882 - 1916)

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

In 1882, in the year that George Greenwood was born, on January 5th, writer and lawyer Charles J. Guiteau was found guilty of the assassination of President Garfield. Guiteau was "offended" because his job applications had been rejected by Garfield's government. He was sentenced to death -although his lawyer plead insanity - and hanged five months later, on June 30th.

In 1892, George was only 10 years old when on August 4th, the father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden were found murdered. Lizzie was accused of the crime and on June 20th of the next year, she was acquitted of murder by a jury. But she was never acquitted in the public mind.

In 1896, when he was just 14 years old, on January 28th, the first ticket for speeding - called "furious driving" - was issued. Walter Arnold of Kent England was fined 1 shilling plus costs - for going 8 mph. The speed limit was 2 mph.

In 1907, he was 25 years old when radiometric dating, a recently discovered technology that could date rocks, found that the earth was 2.2 billion years old which was dramatically older than previously thought. Later refinements and advancements in science would date the age of the earth at over 4.5 billion years.

In 1916, in the year of George Greenwood's passing, 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.