October 19 in History All You Need to Know

Catching up with some tags.

Groanin' Jock tagged me with The Birthday Meme quite a while back. I rarely rush to complete these, but with all the happy news from the homeland this week, I felt in a generous mood.

Here are the rules:

Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (month and day).

Write down three events, two births, one holiday and tag five friends.

There are five slots in the Birthday Meme. As you are tagged, you have to remove the name in the first slot and bump everyone up so that your name can be added to the bottom.OK. I'll do that, but I wont tag anyone. I hate tags, but it is not personal. You Tag You Die sort of thing from primary school.

• 202 BC - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal. Hannibal was always interesting to me when I was younger. I was intrigued by the romantic paintings of the war elephants crossing the Alps during winter storms. He was one driven war machine and gave the Romans a run for their money.
  
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• 1453 - The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years' War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil. I always think that it is odd that the hundred year war lasted 116 years. Joan of Arc eat your heart out.
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• 1987 - (Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%. I remember the blind panic that ensued from this. I was living in Washington DC at the time. Those were the days before 24/7 medja coverage and the interweb. Most of the coverage was on the radio and television and newspapers. It single handedly brought programme trading into the popular lexicon. When I was in Singapore, the Asian financial collapse was covered much more immediately and everywhere.

Birthdays


Both these guys had fairly outrageous lives, lived at the same time and died about the same age, 43.

1944 - Peter Tosh, Jamaican musician, political activist (d. 1987). He is the tall clean living one with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer in their early Wailer days.

Born Winston Hubert McIntosh

Died Peter Tosh from gunshot wounds.

1945 - Divine, American actor (d. 1988) . Actor who starred in the first film version of Hairspray. Seems he did a better job than John Travolta based upon the resident film expert in our house.

Born Harris Glenn Milstead

Died Divine from Sleep Apnea due to obesity.

Festivals

The Scottish Festival of Haggis Supper and Deep Fried Mars Bar takes place on this day (and every other day) in Scotland.

And thats it. You can go in pieces.