Grayson Cartee (1910 - 1986)

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

In 1910, in the year that Grayson Cartee was born, Thomas Edison introduced his kinetophone, which he hoped would make "talkies" a reality. But the sound wasn't synchronized to the pictures and only 45 Kinetophones were made.

In 1928, Grayson was 18 years old when aviatrix Amelia Earhart, age 31, became the first woman to fly solo across North America and back in August. In June, she had been part of a 3 man crew that flew the Atlantic Ocean but since she had no instrument training, she couldn't fly the plane - she kept the flight log. The North American flight became one of her many "firsts" as a female pilot.

In 1959, at the age of 49 years old, Grayson was alive when on August 8th, Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States. The US flag was changed to show 50 stars.

In 1965, by the time this person was 55 years old, on March 8th, the first US combat troops arrived in Vietnam. The 3500 Marines joined 23,000 "advisors" already in South Vietnam. By the end of the year, 190,000 American soldiers were in the country.

In 1986, in the year of Grayson Cartee's passing, on January 28th, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. All seven crew members died. The cause of the explosion was later found to be a failed O-ring. The O-ring failure was due to the unusually cold conditions at Cape Canaveral.