William Griffith (1907 - 1961)

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

In 1907, in the year that William Griffith was born, the second Hague peace conference was called by Russia in the Netherlands. While nothing was settled regarding the matter of peace among nations, many resolutions were passed (and accepted by many nations) about the conventions of war - especially the protection of noncombatants.

In 1913, by the time he was just 6 years old, ratified in February the 16th Amendment, establishing a Federal income tax, became law. Previously, customs duties (tariffs) and excise taxes were the primary sources of federal revenue. With the passage of the 16th Amendment, incomes of couples exceeding $4,000, as well as those of single persons earning $3,000 or more, were subject to a 1% Federal tax (that would be about $98,000 and $74,000 now). Rates rose to 7% for incomes over half a million dollars. Less than 1% of the population was subject to income tax.

In 1921, by the time he was merely 14 years old, the silent film The Sheik, directed by George Melford and starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres (also featuring Adolphe Menjou) debuted on October 21st. Critics weren't enthusiastic but the public loved it - in the first few weeks 125,000 people had seen the movie - and it eventually exceeded $1 million in ticket sales. And Rudolph Valentino, an Italian American, became the heartthrob of a female generation.

In 1933, by the time he was 26 years old, on December 5th, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. The 21st Amendment said "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed." Alcohol was legal again! It was the only amendment to the Constitution approved for the explicit purpose of repealing a previously existing amendment. South Carolina was the only state to reject the Amendment.

In 1961, in the year of William Griffith's passing, on January 20th, John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States. He had previously been a U.S. Senator and a Congressman, both from the state of Massachusetts, as well as a Naval lieutenant in World War II.