Lynna Wiley (1897 - 1999)

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1897 - In the year that Lynna Wiley was born, on September 21st, editor and publisher Francis P. Church responded to a letter to the editor from Virginia O'Hanlon, 8 years old. Virginia's father had told her that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." So she wrote to the Sun, asking if there was a Santa Claus. Church responded with the now famous editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".

1910 - Lynna was just 13 years old when Thomas Edison introduced his kinetophone, which he hoped would make "talkies" a reality. But the sound wasn't synchronized to the pictures and only 45 Kinetophones were made.

1949 - When she was 52 years old, 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."

1954 - At the age of 57 years old, Lynna was alive when from April 22 through June 17th, the Army v. McCarthy hearings were held. The U.S. Army accused Roy Cohn (chief counsel to Senator McCarthy and later trusted mentor of Donald Trump) of blackmail. McCarthy and Cohn accused the U.S. Army of harboring communists. The Army allegations were found to be true. The U.S. Senate later censured McCarthy.

1999 - In the year of Lynna Wiley's passing, 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.

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