Joseph Martin Frey Jr (1928 - 1976)

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

In 1928, in the year that Joseph Martin Frey Jr was born, Mickie Mouse was born! He first appeared in Disney's Steamboat Willie, along with Minnie. Although they were in two previous shorts, this was the first to be distributed. Steamboat Willie took advantage of the new technology and was a "talkie" - music was coordinated with the animation. It became the most popular cartoon of its day.

In 1938, by the time he was only 10 years old, on June 25th (a Saturday) the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt (along with 120 other bills). The Act banned oppressive child labor, set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and established the maximum workweek at 44 hours. It faced a lot of opposition and in fighting for it, Roosevelt said "Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry."

In 1945, Joseph was 17 years old when on August 15th, Imperial Japan announced its surrender. On September 2nd, a formal agreement of surrender was signed. Japan and nine other states signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay, calling for the return of all Allied prisoners of war and subordinating the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. VJ (Victory in Japan) Day was celebrated in the United States on August 14th and 15th. World War II was over.

In 1953, when he was 25 years old, on January 20th, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the 34th President of the United States. Formerly the 1st Supreme Allied Commander Europe in World War II, Eisenhower had never previously held a political office.

In 1976, in the year of Joseph Martin Frey Jr's passing, on August 4th, a mysterious illness struck an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Within a week, 25 people had died and 130 people had been hospitalized. It was the first known instance of what came to be called "Legionnaires Disease."