Rachel Ann (Jacks) Berry (born 1844)

In 1844, in the year that Rachel Ann (Jacks) Berry was born, in June and July, the "Great Flood of 1844" occurred on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers - the largest flood recorded in that area. The population in the area was sparse at the time, though, so the flood didn't have a lot of economic impact. The biggest loss was to the Wyandot Indians - 100 people died from diseases caused by the flood.

In 1860, on February 26th, near Eureka California, white settlers attacked a tribe of Wiyot Indians on Indian Island. Over 60 women, children and older people died. Bret Harte - a writer and friend of Mark Twain - reported the news about the massacre to the papers in San Francisco.

In 1905, the German born physicist, Albert Einstein, proposed the Special Theory of Relativity: 1) that observers can never detect uniform motion except relative to other objects and that 2) unlike the velocity of massive objects, the speed of light is a constant and is the same for all observers independent of their constant velocity toward or away from the light source. Not such simple concepts that lead to the equation everyone now knows: E = mc2.

In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank in April. The RMS Titanic was a British built and run passenger liner that was billed as "unsinkable." On its maiden voyage from Southampton England to New York City, carrying about 2,224 passengers and crew - from the wealthiest people in the world to poor emigrants from Europe, the Titanic hit an iceberg. Five of her watertight compartments failed but she was designed to survive only 4 being flooded. She began to sink. There were only enough lifeboats for about half of the passengers so over 1,000 remained behind while "women and children first" were loaded. Over 1500 died, making it the largest maritime disaster in modern history.

In 1941, in his State of the Union address on January 6th, President Roosevelt detailed the "four freedoms" that everyone in the world should have: Freedom of speech, Freedom of worship, Freedom from want, and Freedom from fear. In the same speech, he outlined the benefits of democracy which he said were economic opportunity, employment, social security, and the promise of "adequate health care".