Wilhelmina Hoesl (1905 - 1986)

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

In 1905, in the year that Wilhelmina Hoesl was born, federal spending was $0.57 billion, unemployment was 4.3%, and the cost of a first-class stamp was $0.02. Current U.S. government spending is $4.268 trillion.

In 1918, at the age of only 13 years old, Wilhelmina was alive when federal spending was $12.68 billion, unemployment was 1.4% and the cost of a first-class stamp was 3 cents.

In 1942, by the time she was 37 years old, on June 17th, Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project, which lead to the development of the first atomic bomb. With the support of Canada and the United Kingdom, the Project came to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly $2 billion. Julius Robert Oppenheimer, a nuclear physicist born in New York, led the Los Alamos Laboratory that developed the actual bomb. The first artificial nuclear explosion took place near Alamogordo New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

In 1957, she was 52 years old when on October 4th, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first man made earth-orbiting satellite - and triggered the Space Race. Sputnik I was only 23 inches in diameter and had no tracking equipment, only 4 antennas, but it had a big impact.

In 1986, in the year of Wilhelmina Hoesl's passing, on January 28th, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. All seven crew members died. The cause of the explosion was later found to be a failed O-ring. The O-ring failure was due to the unusually cold conditions at Cape Canaveral.