Snow Epps (1899 - 1987)

1899 - In the year that Snow Epps was born, the meaning of Chinese "oracle bones" was rediscovered. Farmers in China had been turning up the bones in their fields for generations but most often they were ground up and sold as medicine. The chancellor of the Imperial Academy and a friend noticed, before they ground the bones, that they had writing. The bones had been used around the second millennium BC for divination.

1909 - When this person was just 10 years old, explorer Robert Peary, a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, claimed to have been the first to have reached the geographic North Pole. His claim has been disputed for over a century - some say that he ended up 60 miles from the North Pole. Peary was the only navigator on his team and he didn't submit his records for public review.

1920 - Snow was 21 years old when Italian born factory worker Nicola Sacco and fish peddler Bartolomeo Vanzetti were picked up by police on May 5th in connection with the April 15th murder and robbery of a guard and a paymaster at the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in South Braintree, Mass. Although in later years they were thought to be innocent, they were anarchists and were convicted of the crime and put to death.

1945 - Snow was 46 years old when on June 22nd, the Battle of Okinawa ended. A joint Army and Marine campaign, supported by the Navy, the Battle of Okinawa went on for 82 days. The last Japanese resistance on Okinawa was defeated. 4,907 Navy, 4,675 Army, and 2,938 Marine Corps personnel were killed in the battle on the US side. It is estimated that 110,071 on the Japanese side were killed - the estimate includes Okinawan citizens who were pressed into service and includes children. With the win of Okinawa, the United States gained an important base of operations in the Pacific.

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