John F Mcnally (1929 - 2008)

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

In 1929, in the year that John F Mcnally was born, American Samoa officially became a U.S. territory. Although a part of the United States since 1900, the Ratification Act of 1929 vested "all civil, judicial, and military powers in the President of the United States of America".

In 1946, at the age of 17 years old, John was alive when on July 4th, the Philippines gained independence from the United States. In 1964, Independence Day in the Philippines was moved from July 4th to June 12th at the insistence of nationalists and historians.

In 1959, when he was 30 years old, on August 8th, Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States. The US flag was changed to show 50 stars.

In 1986, by the time he was 57 years old, 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.

In 1999, by the time he was 70 years old, the fear that Y2K (year 2000) would cause the failure of computers worldwide when clocks didn't properly update to January 1st, 2000 became near panic. While some computer systems and software did have problems, the panic was unfounded and computer life went on.