When William Jesse Thomas was born on 23 January 1923, in North Carolina, United States, his father, Edward Benjamin Thomas, was 40 and his mother, Judah Alice Briley, was 33. He lived in Kinston Township, Lenoir, North Carolina, United States in 1935 and Selma, Johnston, North Carolina, United States in 1940. He died on 18 April 1968, in Kinston, Lenoir, North Carolina, United States, at the age of 45, and was buried in Westview Cemetery, Kinston, Lenoir, North Carolina, United States.
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Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis.
13 million people become unemployed after the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 triggers what becomes known as the Great Depression. President Herbert Hoover rejects direct federal relief.
The Neutrality Acts were passed in response to the growing conflicts in Europe and Asia during the time leading up to World War II. The primary purpose was so the US wouldn't engage in any more foreign conflicts. Most of the Acts were repealed in 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
English, French, Walloon, Breton, German, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Greek, West Indian (mainly Haiti and Jamaica), and African (mainly Tanzania and Nigeria): from the personal name Thomas, of Biblical (New Testament) origin, from Aramaic t’ōm’a, a byname meaning ‘twin’. It was borne by one of the disciples of Christ, known for his scepticism about Christ's resurrection (John 20:24–29). The Th- spelling is organic, the initial letter of the name in the Greek New Testament being a theta. The English pronunciation as t rather than th- is the result of French influence from an early date. In Britain, the surname is widely distributed throughout the country, but especially common in Wales and Cornwall. In North America, the English form of the surname has absorbed many cognates from other languages (e.g. Assyrian/Chaldean or Arabic Toma and Tuma , Albanian Toma and Thoma , and Slavic surnames listed in 3 below), and their patronymics and other derivatives (e.g. Polish Tomaszewski and Slovenian Tomažič; see Tomazic ). In France, this surname is most common in the Vosges and Brittany. The name Thomas is also found among Christians in southern India (compare Machan , Mammen , and Oommen ), but since South Indians traditionally do not have hereditary surnames, the southern Indian name was in most cases registered as such only after immigration of its bearers to the US. This surname is also very common among African Americans.
Native American (e.g. Navajo): adoption of the English personal name Thomas (see 1 above) as a surname.
Germanized or Americanized form of Polish Tomas , Tomasz, and Tomaś, Sorbian Tomaš (see also 4 below), Croatian Tomaš and Tomas , Slovenian Tomaš and Tomaž, Czech and Slovak Tomáš, all meaning ‘Thomas’.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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