Shirley Sapin (1926 - 2009)

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

In 1926, in the year that Shirley Sapin was born, on November 15th, NBC was founded. It was the U.S.'s first major broadcast network. Ownership of the network was split between RCA (a majority partner at 50%), its founding corporate parent General Electric (which owned 30%), and Westinghouse (which owned the remaining 20%).

In 1947, she was 21 years old when on November 25th, the Hollywood "Black List" was created by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Ten Hollywood writers and directors had refused to testify to the Committee regarding "Communists" or "Reds" in the movie industry. The next day, the blacklist was created and they were fired.

In 1976, at the age of 50 years old, Shirley was alive when The United States celebrated the Bicentennial of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It was a year long celebration, with the biggest events taking place on July 4th.

In 1982, by the time she was 56 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 1991, at the age of 65 years old, Shirley was alive when on January 16th, Allied forces began the first phase of Operation Desert Storm. Saddam Hussein's forces had previously invaded the sovereign state of Kuwait and the focus of the operation was to remove his Iraqi troops from Kuwait. On February 24th, the ground war began. Within 100 hours, American ground troops declared Kuwait liberated.