Philip Greenwood (1884 - 1964)

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

In 1884, in the year that Philip Greenwood was born, on August 5th, the cornerstone for the base of the Statue of Liberty - a gift from the people of France - was laid. 120,000 people - most donations were $1 - donated to the completion of the base. An 1883 poem by Emma Lazarus was also written to raise funds. That poem was included in the base of the statue and is well known today. The most famous phrase: "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

In 1893, by the time he was merely 9 years old, a songbook, called Song Stories for the Kindergarten, was published by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill. One of the songs included in the book was "Good Morning to All" - later the lyrics were changed and it became "Happy Birthday to You".

In 1911, Philip was 27 years old when the first use of aircraft as an offensive weapon occurred in the Turkish-Italian War. First used for aerial reconnaissance alone, planes were then used in aerial combat to shoot down recon planes. In World War I, planes and zeppelins evolved for use in bombing.

In 1942, Philip was 58 years old when on June 17th, Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project, which lead to the development of the first atomic bomb. With the support of Canada and the United Kingdom, the Project came to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly $2 billion. Julius Robert Oppenheimer, a nuclear physicist born in New York, led the Los Alamos Laboratory that developed the actual bomb. The first artificial nuclear explosion took place near Alamogordo New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

In 1964, in the year of Philip Greenwood's passing, in June, three young civil rights workers - Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi - were kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi. Working with "Freedom Summer", they were registering African-Americans to vote in the Southern states. Their bodies were found two months later. Although it was discovered that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office and the Philadelphia, Mississippi Police Department were involved, only 7 men were convicted and served less than six years.