William M Weaver (1906 - 1993)

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

In 1906, in the year that William M Weaver was born, the great San Francisco earthquake hit, estimated at 7.8 on the Richter scale. The earthquake caused fires that raged for days and between the earthquake and the fire, about 3,000 people were killed and 80% of the City was destroyed.

In 1910, when he was just 4 years old, the Mexican revolution began. Dictator Porfirio Díaz had ruled for 35 years and was nationally unpopular. When elections were held in 1910 and a rigged election kept Diaz in office. The uprising began - and lasted for another 10 years.

In 1934, at the age of 28 years old, William was alive when on November 11th 1933, an extremely strong dust storm hit South Dakota, stripping topsoil. Other strong dust storms had occurred during 1933. Severe droughts continued to hit the Great Plains and the dust storms devastated agricultural production as well as people's' lives for several years. The Roosevelt administration and scientists eventually determined that farming practices had caused the conditions that led to the dust storms and the changes they implemented in farming stopped the Dust Bowl.

In 1977, William was 71 years old when on January 21st, President Carter pardoned "draft dodgers" - men who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War. He fulfilled a campaign promise with the pardon. But it only applied to civilian evaders - the estimated 500,000 to 1 million active-duty personnel who went AWOL were not included.

In 1993, in the year of William M Weaver's passing, on February 26th, a truck bomb exploded in the garage under the North Tower of the World Trade Center. While the bomb didn't do what was planned (collapse the North Tower into the South Tower), it did kill six people and injured thousands of people.