Jettie Rebecca Choate (1921 - 2007)

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

In 1921, in the year that Jettie Rebecca Choate was born, hugely popular Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, silent film star, was arrested for rape and manslaughter after an actress died following a party at his house. He was acquitted after three trials and the jury wrote a formal letter apologizing for the charges, but his career never recovered. His films were at first banned - the ban was lifted after a year - and he was mostly ostracized by the community. He died at 46..

In 1933, Jettie was merely 12 years old when on March 4th, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the 32nd President of the United States. He was elected four times (equaled by no other President) and guided the United States through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War 2. His wife was his cousin Eleanor Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt's niece) who President Truman called "First Lady of the World". Some of the major programs that survive from his presidency are the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act (The National Labor Relations Act of 1935) , the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security.

In 1978, when she was 57 years old, on November 18th, Jim Jones's Peoples Temple followers committed mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana - where they had moved, from San Francisco, as a group. Jones was the leader of the cult and ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch, which they did. Whole families (women and children included) died - more than 900 people in all.

In 1985, when she was 64 years old, on March 7th, the song "We Are the World" was released as a charity effort to alleviate the African famine. The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones. They were joined by 37 other famous singers in the recording studio and a phenomena had begun

In 1997, when she was 76 years old, on August 31st, Princess Diana of Great Britain was killed when her car crashed into a pillar in the tunnel under the Pont de l'Alma bridge in Paris. The car she was riding in was trying to evade the paparazzi but it was also discovered later that the driver of the car, who was also killed, had three times the legal limit of alcohol which likely contributed to the accident.