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🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning — it's Monday, October 19. Let's cover the end of the American Revolutionary War, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Trotsky's exile, Blockbuster's debut, the first antibiotic, "Take On Me", and Black Monday, and much more. Quick, sharp, and precise!
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🚀 Time Machine
-202 BC
Battle of Zama: Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal and the Carthaginians, ending the Second Punic War.
-1722
Ambrose Godfrey patented the fire extinguisher in England.
-1781
British forces under Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and Rochambeau at Yorktown, ending the American Revolutionary War.
-1812
One month after entering a burning, deserted Moscow, Napoleon's army began a hasty retreat from Russia.
-1926
The Russian Politburo threw out Leon Trotsky and his followers.
-1943
Rutgers University researchers in New Jersey isolated streptomycin, the first antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis.
-1983
U.S. Senate designates Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday on the third Monday in January, near his January 15 birthday.
-1985
The first Blockbuster video-rental store opened in Dallas, Texas.
-1985
"Take On Me" by a-ha reaches #1 on the Billboard pop chart, boosted by its innovative comic-book-style animated video.
-1987
Global stock markets crashed on Black Monday, with the Dow Jones falling 508.32 points (22%), 4½ times the previous daily record.
-1988
The U.S. Senate passes a bill restricting advertising during children's shows.
-2015
University of California scientists suggest life on Earth began 4.1 billion years ago, 300 million years earlier than previously believed.
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📸 Snapshot
The best way to illustrate Black Monday is with a Toronto Stock Exchange trader at day's end, 1987
🗨️ Last Words
“No noise, no music, no bohemia!”