Maria Skoog (1887 - 1983)

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

In 1887, in the year that Maria Skoog was born, on July 1st, the assembly for the supports of the Eiffel Tower began . A wrought iron lattice tower, it was designed and built by Gustave Eiffel - who also contributed to the building of the Statue of Liberty. There are 18,000 pieces in the Eiffel Tower - which had to be built separately and then assembled in place - with rivets - to complete the Tower.

In 1930, Maria was 43 years old when as head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, William Hays established a code of decency that outlined what was acceptable in films. The public - and government - had felt that films in the '20's had become increasingly risque and that the behavior of its stars was becoming scandalous. Laws were being passed. In response, the heads of the movie studios adopted a voluntary "code", hoping to head off legislation. The first part of the code prohibited "lowering the moral standards of those who see it", called for depictions of the "correct standards of life", and forbade a picture from showing any sort of ridicule towards a law or "creating sympathy for its violation". The second part dealt with particular behavior in film such as homosexuality, the use of specific curse words, and miscegenation.

In 1963, at the age of 76 years old, Maria was alive when on November 22nd, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th President of the United States when President John Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Johnson was sworn in on the plane carrying Kennedy's body back to Washington D.C.

In 1975, when she was 88 years old, in January, Popular Mechanics featured the Altair 8800 on it's cover. The Altair home computer kit allowed consumers to build and program their own personal computers. Thousands were sold in the first month.

In 1983, in the year of Maria Skoog's passing, on August 30th, the Soviet Union claimed that a South Korean Boeing 747 jetliner (Flight 007), bound for Seoul from New York City, had strayed into Soviet airspace. Saying that they believed it to be a U.S. spy plane, the passenger jet was shot down by a Soviet SU-15 fighter - after it had tracked the airliner for two hours. All 269 passengers (including a U.S. Representative from Georgia) and crew were killed.