Morton Yoder (1908 - 1987)

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

In 1908, in the year that Morton Yoder was born, a mysterious Siberian explosion leveled over 770 square miles of forest. There were no human casualties. Explanations of the explosion have included a comet, meteorite, natural atomic explosion, or a crashed UFO. Although it is called an impact event - the largest one in recorded earth history - there is no crater and it is widely thought that the explosion was caused by a meteor exploding 3 to 6 miles above the earth.

In 1915, when he was merely 7 years old, in May, the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo. The Lusitania was a British passenger ship that was sailing from New York to Liverpool England. She sank in 18 minutes - 1,198 died and 761 survived. While travelers were the main casualty - and commodity - the Lusitania did carry wartime weapons. "Remember the Lusitania" became the rallying cry of World War 1.

In 1936, by the time he was 28 years old, on November 2nd, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) debuted the world's first regular high-definition television service. The channel had a short schedule - Monday through Saturday, 3:00p to 4:00p and 9:00p to 10:00p. The first broadcast was "Opening of the BBC Television Service".

In 1968, when he was 60 years old, on April 4th, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights leader, was shot and killed by an assassin in Memphis. James Earl Ray was apprehended and plead guilty to shooting Dr. King. Ray died in jail in 1998.

In 1987, in the year of Morton Yoder's passing, was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence.