William R Roth (1918 - 2002)

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

In 1918, in the year that William R Roth was born, following European countries, Daylight Saving Time went into effect in the United States in March. It was an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power. This was a war effort and proved unpopular so in most areas of the United States, Daylight Saving Time ended after World War I. It returned during World War II.

In 1920, at the age of only 2 years old, William was alive when in September, a bomb exploded in the J.P. Morgan bank building in New York City, killing 30 people immediately - 8 later died due to their injuries - and injuring another 200. Killing more people than the 1910 bombing of the LA Times (the deadliest terrorist act up until then), no one took responsibility and the perpetrators were never found. Italian anarchists were suspected of the bombing.

In 1960, William was 42 years old when on September 26th, the first televised debate for a Presidential campaign in the United States - Kennedy vs Nixon - was held. Seventy million people watched the debate on TV. The debate pre-empted the very popular Andy Griffith Show.

In 1978, when he was 60 years old, on July 25th, Louise Brown, the first "test-tube baby", was born at Oldham Hospital in London. Louise was conceived through IVF (in vitro fertilization), a controversial and experimental procedure at the time.

In 1988, at the age of 70 years old, William was alive when on December 21st, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie Scotland. The explosion killed all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. The flight had left Heathrow Airport in London less than an hour before, on its way to New York. After an exhaustive (and long) investigation it came to be believed that two individuals from Libya had planted the bomb.