Rosalena Begas (1923 - 1979)

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

In 1923, in the year that Rosalena Begas was born, on September 1, an earthquake - the Great Kanto earthquake - destroyed one-third of Tokyo. Measuring 7.9 and with a reported duration of between 4 and 10 minutes, casualties totaled about 142,800 deaths, including about 40,000 who went missing and were presumed dead.

In 1931, this person was just 8 years old when on May 1st, the Empire State Building opened in New York City. At 1,454 feet (including the roof and antenna), it was the tallest building in the world until the World Trade Center's North Tower was built in 1970. (It is now the 34th tallest.) Opening at the beginning of the Great Depression, most of the offices in the Empire State Building remained unoccupied for years and the observation deck was an equal source of revenue and kept the building profitable.

In 1948, when this person was 25 years old, on January 30th, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi by a member of a Hindu nationalist party who thought that Gandhi was too accommodating to Muslims. The man, Nathuram Godse, shot Gandhi 3 times. He died immediately. The shooter was tried, convicted, and hung in November 1949.

In 1950, when this person was 27 years old, in February, Joe McCarthy gave a speech alleging that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who worked in the State Department. He went on to chair a committee that investigated not only the State Department but also the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army for communist spies - until he was condemned by the U.S. Senate in 1954.

In 1979, in the year of Rosalena Begas's passing, on March 28th, a partial nuclear meltdown occurred at the power plant at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania. Radiation leaked into the environment, resulting in a rating of 5 on a scale of 7 ("Accident With Wider Consequences") . It ended up costing $1 billion to clean up the site.