Olivia Bye (1874 - 1967)

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

In 1874, in the year that Olivia Bye was born, on May 20th, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were approved for a patent for "blue jeans with copper rivets". They charged $13.50 per dozen jeans. Although the term "jeans" was first used in 1795 - in Italy - using rivets to reinforce stress points in jeans such as pockets and the bottom of the fly was an original idea..

In 1880, when she was merely 6 years old, on February 4th, five members of one family in Ontario, Canada were killed and their farm was burned by a mob. Called the Black Donnelly Massacre, the Irish family had been feuding with other citizens of the town. No one was ever convicted.

In 1944, by the time she was 70 years old, on December 16th, The Battle of the Bulge began in the Ardennes forest on the Western Front. Lasting for a little over a month, the battle began with a surprise attack by Germany on the Allied forces The U.S. suffered their highest casualties of any operation in World War II - 89,000 were casualties, around 8,600 killed - but Germany also severely depleted their resources and they couldn't be replaced.

In 1957, by the time she was 83 years old, on October 4th, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first man made earth-orbiting satellite - and triggered the Space Race. Sputnik I was only 23 inches in diameter and had no tracking equipment, only 4 antennas, but it had a big impact.

In 1967, in the year of Olivia Bye's passing, on October 2nd, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black US Supreme Court justice. Marshall was the great-grandson of a slave and graduated first in his class at Howard University Law School. His nomination to the Supreme Court was approved by the Senate, 69 to 11.