Yak Oussani (1865 - 1903)

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

In 1865, in the year that Yak Oussani was born, on April 14th, President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a comedy at Ford's Theatre - Our American Cousin - in Washington, D.C. Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot him 4 days after Lee had surrendered. The President died the next day. At almost the same time that Lincoln was shot, US Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family were attacked at home by another conspirator and Confederate sympathizer.

In 1879, Yak was merely 14 years old when on November 10th, Bell Telephone and Western Union reached an agreement. Bell Telephone would keep out of the telegraphy business and Western Union would stay out of the telephone business - leading to success for both.

In 1882, at the age of 17 years old, Yak was alive when on January 5th, writer and lawyer Charles J. Guiteau was found guilty of the assassination of President Garfield. Guiteau was "offended" because his job applications had been rejected by Garfield's government. He was sentenced to death -although his lawyer plead insanity - and hanged five months later, on June 30th.

In 1894, he was 29 years old when large reserves of oil were discovered on the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. Previously thought to be "useless" land - not even good for farming - the tribe had bought the land themselves. The discovery of oil made the Osage the "richest group of people in the world" at the time.

In 1903, in the year of Yak Oussani's passing, the book The Souls of Black Folk, written by W. E. B. Du Bois, was published. Containing several essays on the African-American experience in America, much of the book was based on Du Bois' own life. The book was one of the very early works in the science of sociology.