Todays Birthday John Jacob Astor (1864) Astor was a financier and inventor. A man of many talents, he made a fortune in real estate, built the Astoria Hotel, invented a bicycle brake and a turbine engine, and wrote the science-fiction novel A Journey in Other Worlds about life on the planets Saturn and Jupiter. His second marriage to the much younger Madeleine Talmage Force caused a scandal, and the two took an extended honeymoon abroad to wait out the controversy. On their return trip, Astor was killed in what disaster? John Jacob Jack Astor IV [1] (July 13, 1864 – April 15, 1912) was an American businessman, real estate builder, investor, inventor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War and a member of the prominent Astor family. In April 1912, Astor earned a prominent place in history when he embarked on the ocean liner RMS Titanic, which hit an iceberg four days into its voyage and sank in the early hours of April 15. Astor was among the 1,514 people on board who did not survive. He was the richest passenger aboard the Titanic, and was considered to be among the richest people in the world at that time.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 13:43:32 +0000
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