Jermi Choate (1903 - 1977)

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

In 1903, in the year that Jermi Choate was born, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company was begun by two childhood friends, William Harley and Arthur Davidson - with help from Arthur's brother, Walter. Their first prototype - a "motor-bicycle" - couldn't climb hills without also pedaling, so they went back to the drawing board, and in 1904 their new version came in 4th in a race. Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company were the only two major motorcycle companies to survive the Great Depression.

In 1922, at the age of 19 years old, Jermi was alive when on James Joyce's 40th birthday, his book Ulysses was published in France. The book covers the experiences of an Irishman in Dublin on an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Now considered a classic, it was controversial at the time. Due to some sexual content, the book was banned in the U.S. during the 1920's and the U.S. Post Office destroyed 500 copies of the novel.

In 1931, when this person was 28 years old, on May 1st, the Empire State Building opened in New York City. At 1,454 feet (including the roof and antenna), it was the tallest building in the world until the World Trade Center's North Tower was built in 1970. (It is now the 34th tallest.) Opening at the beginning of the Great Depression, most of the offices in the Empire State Building remained unoccupied for years and the observation deck was an equal source of revenue and kept the building profitable.

In 1962, when this person was 59 years old, lasting from October 16th - 28th, the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to nuclear war. The Soviet Union had been installing a nuclear missile base in Cuba. The United States established a blockade to stop the base from being completed. Through secret negotiations, war was averted: the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba and the United States agreed to never invade Cuba and to dismantle weapons in Turkey and Italy.

In 1977, in the year of Jermi Choate's passing, on January 21st, President Carter pardoned "draft dodgers" - men who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War. He fulfilled a campaign promise with the pardon. But it only applied to civilian evaders - the estimated 500,000 to 1 million active-duty personnel who went AWOL were not included.