Ray Meyers (1899 - 1972)

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

In 1899, in the year that Ray Meyers was born, the meaning of Chinese "oracle bones" was rediscovered. Farmers in China had been turning up the bones in their fields for generations but most often they were ground up and sold as medicine. The chancellor of the Imperial Academy and a friend noticed, before they ground the bones, that they had writing. The bones had been used around the second millennium BC for divination.

In 1917, when he was 18 years old, Russian government offices were seized and the Romanov's Winter Palace was stormed in the Russian February and October Revolutions. The February revolution resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas and a coalition of the Parliament and workers parties taking control of the government. The October revolution resulted in Lenin and the Bolsheviks taking complete control.

In 1923, at the age of 24 years old, Ray was alive when Harlem's Cotton Club opened in New York City. Owned by a bootlegger and gangster, it was a 700 seat speakeasy that catered to a "white only" clientele. But most of the entertainers were African-American and featured some of the best entertainers of the time such as Lena Horne, the Nicholas Brothers, Ethel Waters, and Cab Calloway.

In 1945, he was 46 years old when on December 5th, Flight 19 was lost in the Bermuda Triangle. All five planes and 14 airmen disappeared, as did 13 crew on a plane that was dispatched to find them. The official Navy reported the disappearance as "cause unknown".

In 1972, in the year of Ray Meyers's passing, on November 7th, Richard Nixon won re-election, amidst the dawning knowledge of the Watergate scandal, by 60.7% to anti-war candidate George McGovern's 37.5%.