Sylvia Fridman (1919 - 2002)

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

In 1919, in the year that Sylvia Fridman was born, in the summer and early autumn, race riots erupted in 26 U.S. cities, resulting in hundreds of deaths and even more people being badly hurt. In most cases, African-Americans were the victims. It was called the "Red Summer". Men who were returning from World War I needed jobs and there was competition for those jobs among the races. Tension was heightened by the use by many companies of blacks as strikebreakers.

In 1922, at the age of only 3 years old, Sylvia was alive when on November 4th, British Egyptologists George Carnarvon and Howard Carter unearthed the first step leading to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. By the end of the month they had unearthed the steps and broken through the door into the intact tomb. This was the only tomb that had remained unlooted that had been found (and is, to date). Filled with gold, jewels, and ancient everyday items, the find was priceless - in terms of money and history.

In 1948, by the time she was 29 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 1987, Sylvia was 68 years old when on October 19th, stock exchanges around the world crashed. Beginning in Hong Kong then spreading to Europe, the crash then hit the United States. It was called Black Monday. The Dow Jones fell 508 points to 1,738.74 (22.61%).

In 1999, Sylvia was 80 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.