Matthew Walsh (died 1958)

In 1849, on April 22nd, Patrick Kennedy - great-grandfather of President John Kennedy - arrived in the United States. He was the 3rd born son of an Irish farmer and he knew that he wouldn't be given the chance to run the family farm. So he emigrated to Massachusetts and became a cooper. After only 10 years in the US, he died of cholera at age 35.

In 1868, on July 9th, The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed African Americans full citizenship and equal protection under the law. It also gave all persons in the United States due process of law. The former Confederate states hotly contested the amendment but were forced to go along so that they could regain representation in Congress

In 1894, large reserves of oil were discovered on the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. Previously thought to be "useless" land - not even good for farming - the tribe had bought the land themselves. The discovery of oil made the Osage the "richest group of people in the world" at the time.

In 1946, on July 4th, the Philippines gained independence from the United States. In 1964, Independence Day in the Philippines was moved from July 4th to June 12th at the insistence of nationalists and historians.

In 1958, in the year of Matthew Walsh's passing, on January 31st, Explorer I, the United States' answer to Sputnik I (and 2,) was launched. America had entered the Space Race. The first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt, it remained in orbit until 1970.