Morris Rorick (1910 - 1910)

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

In 1910, in the year that Morris Rorick was born, 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.

In 1911, Morris was merely 1 year old when the Triangle Shirtwaist fire occurred, one of the deadliest industrial disasters in U.S. history. 146 workers (123 women and 23 men, many of them recent Jewish and Italian immigrants) died from the fire or by jumping to escape the fire and smoke. The garment factory was on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of a building in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Doors to stairwells and exits had been locked in order to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to prevent theft, so they couldn't escape by normal means when the fire broke out. Due to the disaster, legislation was passed to protect sweatshop workers.

In 1918, by the time he was just 8 years old, on November 1, an elevated train on the Brooklyn line of the subway - driven by an inexperienced operator because of a strike - tried to navigate a turn at 30mph. The limit on the curve was 6 mph. The 2nd and 3rd cars of the 5 car wooden train were badly damaged and at least 93 people were killed, making it the deadliest crash in New York subway history.

In 1924, by the time he was only 14 years old, on January 21st, Vladimir Lenin, a leader of the Russian Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union died. He had survived two assassination attempts but had subsequent physical problems, suffering 3 strokes. He was in such great pain, it is said that he asked Stalin to poison him. The circumstances of his death are still disputed. He did oppose Stalin as the next leader - nonetheless, Stalin won a power struggle and ruled as a Soviet dictator until his death in 1953.