Richard Rivera (1959 - 2000)

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

In 1959, in the year that Richard Rivera was born, on August 8th, Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States. The US flag was changed to show 50 stars.

In 1968, by the time he was only 9 years old, on January 31st, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, a turning point in the Vietnam War. 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces swarmed into South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese and US troops held off the offensive but it was such fierce fighting that the U.S. public began to turn against the war.

In 1973, Richard was just 14 years old when on January 28th, the Paris Peace Accord was signed - supposedly ending the Vietnam War. Hostilities continued between North and South Vietnam and the U.S. continued to bomb. But by August 15, 1973, 95% of American troops had left Vietnam. The war ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon.

In 1987, Richard was 28 years old when was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence.

In 1999, he was 40 years old when the fear that Y2K (year 2000) would cause the failure of computers worldwide when clocks didn't properly update to January 1st, 2000 became near panic. While some computer systems and software did have problems, the panic was unfounded and computer life went on.