A little bit of Pinnacol Trivia...

Pinnacol was originally created in 1915 when the Colorado legislature first passed the Colorado Workers' Compensation Insurance Act. In those days we were known as the State Compensation Insurance Fund. As a history buff I'm always curious about the similarities of times gone by with what's occurring today. When we do new employee orientation we try to share some of our company history but sometimes it is difficult for new employees to appreciate what we are sharing with them because they lack the historical knowledge to put what was happening with our company into context with what was happening in the broader world. So, just for fun, here's a quick quiz to test your knowledge. We're going back 95 years in time to 1915. Put on your thinking cap - which of the following things do you think actually occurred in that year?

1. While working as a cook at New York's Sloan Hospital under an assumed name, Typhoid Mary infects 25 people and is placed in quarantine for life.
2. The Battleship HMS Formidable is sunk by a German U-boat.
3. Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of Congress.
4. The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote.
5. German zeppelins bomb the cities of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the England for the first time, killing 20.

6. The first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
7. The film Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. Griffith, premieres in Los Angeles.
8. NACA (The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), the predecessor to NASA is founded.
9. Pluto is photographed for the first time but is not yet classified as a planet.
10. The Gallipoli Campaign begins.
11. The poet John McCrae writes the short poem In Flanders Fields. (If you've never read it, click on the title and it will come up)

12. Babe Ruth hits his first career home run.
13. The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat.
14. The United States occupation of Haiti begins.
15. A hurricane hits Galveston and New Orleans leaving 275 dead.
16. The U.S. recognizes the Mexican government of Venustiano Carranza during the Mexican Revolution.
17. The theory of general relativity is formulated.

18. Paul Tibbets, who would later pilot the bomber Enola Gay which dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan is born.
19. The singer Billie Holiday and the director and actor Orson Welles are born.
20. The singer Frank Sinatra and Werner Von Trapp (whose family The Sound of Music is based upon) are born.

Now that you've read through the list, I'll admit its not really a test. ALL of the above, and many other important things that helped shape the world as we now know it occurred in 1915. In doing the research for this posting I was amazed at the people who were born, as well as who died, in 1915 who have influenced the what and how of the things I do every day as well as influencing the way I understand the world around me. 1915 was clearly a very busy year, but what year isn't? I hope you enjoyed this short snapshot into a time that seems so far away, yet really was only a blink in time ago.