History

New York Life | December 1, 2024

At New York Life

2021

Dec. 8: The New York Life Foundation releases its inaugural State of Grief Report which examined the impact of COVID-19 on grief support in America.

2020

Dec. 31: New York Life completes acquisition of Cigna’s Group Life and Disability Insurance business.

2012

Dec. 4: New York Life Capital Partners announced it was changing its name to GoldPoint Capital Partners. The name was chosen for the iconic gold pinnacle atop the New York Life Building.

2010

Dec. 2: Private Advisors, LLC joined New York Life. Private Advisors specialized in alternate investments with approximately $5 billion in assets under management at the time.

2006

Dec. 5: The New York Life Foundation pledged $10 million to establish The New York Life Endowment for Emerging African-American Issues at the City College of New York’s Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies. It was the largest single grant ever made by the New York Life Foundation, as well as the largest corporate foundation gift ever received by the City College of New York or the Powell Center.

1980

Dec. 9: Colonial Village, the first apartment complex to be built through the Federal Housing Authority — with New York Life holding the mortgage — was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

1941

Dec. 7: Japanese planes attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, prompting the U.S.’s entry into World War II. Twenty-one hundred men and women from New York Life would serve in the military before the war ended in 1945. Forty-five of those employees died in the line of duty. By the war’s end, New York Life would make government bonds nearly 60% of its holdings — around $2.5 billion worth— to help finance the war effort.4

Around the world

1982

Dec. 2: The first permanent artificial heart was implanted in 61-year-old Barney C. Clark by Dr. William De Vries at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City. Clark, who was near death at the time of the operation, survived 112 days after the implantation.

1955

Dec. 1: The birth of the modern American civil rights movement occurred when Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back section of a municipal bus. Her arrest resulted in a year-long boycott of the city bus system by African Americans and led to legal actions ending racial segregation on municipal buses throughout the South.

1972

Dec. 21: East and West Germany established diplomatic ties, ending nearly two decades of Cold War hostility and paving the way for international recognition of East Germany.

1941

Dec. 8: A day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States and Britain declared war on Japan.

1903

Dec. 17: After three years of experimentation, Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first powered, controlled airplane flights. They made four flights near Kitty Hawk, NC, the longest lasting about a minute.

1879

Dec. 31: Thomas Edison provided the first public demonstration of his electric incandescent lamp at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ.