Mabel Elaine FitzPatrick (1969 - 1955)

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

In 1955, in the year of Mabel Elaine FitzPatrick's passing, on September 10th the TV show "Gunsmoke" debuted on CBS. It went on to be television's longest-running western. Matt Dillon, Chester, Doc Adams, and Miss Kitty became household names.

In 1964, she was merely -5 years old when in June, three young civil rights workers - Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi - were kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi. Working with "Freedom Summer", they were registering African-Americans to vote in the Southern states. Their bodies were found two months later. Although it was discovered that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office and the Philadelphia, Mississippi Police Department were involved, only 7 men were convicted and served less than six years.

In 1969, in the year that Mabel Elaine FitzPatrick was born, 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.

In 1970, Mabel was only 1 year old when on May 1st, US troops invaded Cambodia, expanding the Vietnam War. The invasion of Cambodia was a Nixon policy, although it was argued against by both his Secretary of State and his Secretary of Defense.

In 1971, by the time she was only 2 years old, in March, Congress passed the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which lowered the voting age to 18 (from 21). It was a response to the criticism that men could fight at 18, but not vote for the policies and politicians who sent them to war. The states quickly ratified the Amendment and it was signed into law on July 1st by President Richard Nixon.