Ruth Kerr (1927 - 2003)

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

In 1927, in the year that Ruth Kerr was born, aviator and media darling Charles Lindbergh, age 25, made the first successful solo TransAtlantic flight. "Lucky Lindy" took off from Long Island in New York and flew to Paris, covering  3,600 statute miles and flying for 33 1⁄2-hours. His plane "The Spirit of St. Louis" was a fabric-covered, single-seat, single-engine "Ryan NYP" high-wing monoplane designed by both Lindbergh and the manufacturer's chief engineer.

In 1955, she was 28 years old when on September 10th the TV show "Gunsmoke" debuted on CBS. It went on to be television's longest-running western. Matt Dillon, Chester, Doc Adams, and Miss Kitty became household names.

In 1962, by the time she was 35 years old, lasting from October 16th - 28th, the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to nuclear war. The Soviet Union had been installing a nuclear missile base in Cuba. The United States established a blockade to stop the base from being completed. Through secret negotiations, war was averted: the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba and the United States agreed to never invade Cuba and to dismantle weapons in Turkey and Italy.

In 1982, by the time she was 55 years old, on September 14th, Princess Grace of Monaco (American actress Grace Kelly), 52, died of injuries when her car plunged off a mountain road. Her 17 year old daughter, Stephanie, was also in the car and suffered serious injuries but recovered. It's believed that the accident was caused when Princess Grace, who was driving, had a mild stroke.

In 1995, by the time she was 68 years old, on May 19th, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil - before 9/11 - took place in Oklahoma City. A truck bomb went off outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown - killing 68 people, injuring more than 680 others, and destroying one-third of the building. The most disturbing images were of children - a daycare center was hit by the bomb. The deadliest incident of domestic terrorism ever, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier were convicted of the bombing.