Joseph Valcourt (1908 - 1969)

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

In 1908, in the year that Joseph Valcourt was born, President Theodore Roosevelt held the White House Conservation Conference, which lead to the establishment of the National Conservation Commission. Preparing the first inventory of the United State's natural resources, the commission was divided into four parts: water, forests, lands, and minerals.

In 1915, by the time he was merely 7 years old, the Superior Court in Fulton County Georgia accepted the charter for the establishment of the new Ku Klux Klan, succeeding the Klan that flourished in the South in the late 1800's. This iteration of the Klan adopted white clothing and used many of the code words from the first Klan, adding cross burnings and mass marches in an attempt to intimidate others.

In 1924, at the age of 16 years old, Joseph was alive when in May, wealthy college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and killed 14 year old Robert Franks "in the interest of science". Leopold and Loeb thought that they were intellectually superior and that they could commit the perfect crime and not be caught. They were brought in for questioning within 8 days and quickly confessed. Clarence Darrow was hired as their defense lawyer, getting them life imprisonment instead of a death sentence. Loeb was eventually killed in prison - Leopold was released after 33 years, dying of a heart attack at age 66.

In 1949, at the age of 41 years old, Joseph was alive when comedian Milton Berle hosted the first telethon show. It raised $1,100,000 for cancer research and lasted 16 hours. The next day, newspapers, in writing about the event, first used the word "telethon."

In 1969, in the year of Joseph Valcourt's passing, on July 20th, the first men walked on the moon. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. both walked on the moon but it was Armstrong who first stepped on the moon. They fulfilled the promise of President Kennedy's commitment in 1961 to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.