James Henry Ballinger (1855 - 1934)

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

In 1855, in the year that James Henry Ballinger was born, on November 17th, David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary and explorer, became the first known European to see Victoria Falls. He named the falls in honor of Queen Victoria but locally it was - and is - Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means "The Smoke That Thunders".

In 1896, he was 41 years old when on January 4th, Utah became the 45th state in the United States. After the LDS Church banned polygamy in 1890, Utah's application for statehood became acceptable to Congress and the Utah Territory became Utah..

In 1915, at the age of 60 years old, James was alive when in April, the Ottoman Empire rounded up, arrested, and deported 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Turkey. As their actions continued through the next several years, an estimated 600,000 to 1 million Armenians were killed by Turkish soldiers.

In 1923, he was 68 years old when the Teapot Dome scandal became the subject of an investigation by Senator Walsh and severely damaged the reputation of the Harding administration. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison. At the time, the Teapot Dome scandal was seen as "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics".

In 1934, in the year of James Henry Ballinger's passing, on July 22nd, gangster John Dillinger was killed in Chicago. His gang had robbed banks and police stations, among other charges, and he was being hunted by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI - although many in the public saw him as a "Robin Hood". A madam from a brothel in which he was hiding became an informer for the FBI and, after a shootout with FBI agents, Dillinger was shot and died.