Pauline Matzke-Heidke (born 1865)

In 1865, in the year that Pauline Matzke-Heidke was born, on September 26th, Champ Ferguson, a Confederate guerrilla, became the first person to be convicted of war crimes arising from the Civil War. (There was only one other person convicted of war crimes in the Civil War.) He was found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges arising from the murder of 53 people. On October 20, he was hung.

In 1874, 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 1888, on July 25th, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City - Frank Edward McGurrin - decisively beat the competition in a typing contest in Ohio. He was supposedly the only person who used touch typing and is believed to have invented the method. Touch typing is ubiquitous now - but Frank's win is what convinced everyone that the method was good!

In 1989, on November 9th, the Berlin Wall fell. The Wall was built by the East Germans to keep East Berliners from escaping into West Berlin, separating families and friends. When the head of the East German Communist Party announced that day that East Berliners could cross whenever they pleased, happy crowds surged across the border. People brought tools and took parts of the hated wall.

In 1994, on May 6th, former political prisoner, lawyer, and activist Nelson Mandela was elected the first black President of South Africa. He was 75 when he was elected and he served one five-year term.