Marg Rionda (1916 - 1995)

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

In 1916, in the year that Marg Rionda was born, the Battle of Verdun was fought from February through December. It was the largest and longest battle of World War I, lasting 303 days. The original estimates were 714,231 casualties - 377,231 French and 337,000 German, an average of 70,000 casualties a month. Current estimates are even larger. The Battle of the Somme was also fought from July through September of the same year. Original estimates were 485,000 British and French casualties and 630,000 German casualties.

In 1925, Marg was only 9 years old when in July, the Scopes Trial - often called the Scopes Monkey Trial - took place, prosecuting a substitute teacher for teaching evolution in school. Tennessee had enacted a law that said it was "unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school". William Jennings Bryan headed the prosecution and Clarence Darrow headed the defense. The teacher was found guilty and fined $100. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee upheld the law but overturned the guilty verdict.

In 1961, when she was 45 years old, on January 20th, John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States. He had previously been a U.S. Senator and a Congressman, both from the state of Massachusetts, as well as a Naval lieutenant in World War II.

In 1976, Marg was 60 years old when 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."

In 1995, in the year of Marg Rionda's passing, on September 3rd, eBay was founded in San Jose California. Beginning as simply a place for Pierre Omidyar's girlfriend (now wife) to share her Pez passion and collection online, the site has become a multibillion-dollar business and operates in 30 countries.