Raymond Allen (1904 - 1987)

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

In 1904, in the year that Raymond Allen was born, the "Teddy's Bear" was first produced. After seeing a political cartoon of President Teddy Roosevelt refusing to kill a clubbed and tied up bear, Jewish Russian immigrant Morris Michtom - who owned a candy shop and sold stuffed animals that he and his wife made at night at the store - made a "Teddy's Bear" and put it in his shop's window. The stuffed bears were an immediate success and Michtom and his wife went on to found the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.

In 1917, by the time he was only 13 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 1935, when he was 31 years old, the BOI's name (the Bureau of Investigation) was changed to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and it officially became a separate agency with the Department of Justice. J. Edgar Hoover, the Chief of the BOI, continued in his office and became the first Director of the FBI. The FBI's responsibility is to "detect and prosecute crimes against the United States".

In 1940, he was 36 years old when on November 5th, President Franklin Roosevelt was elected to a third term, defeating Wendell Willkie of Indiana (a corporate lawyer). Roosevelt running for a third term was controversial. But the U.S. was emerging from the Great Recession and he promised that he would not involve the country in any foreign war (which of course changed when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor). Roosevelt defeated Willkie in the popular vote by 54.7 to 44.8% and in the Electoral College 449 to 82.

In 1987, in the year of Raymond Allen's passing, was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence.