The first transcontinental telegraph message is sent, Harry Houdini gives his last performance, the United Nations is born, Jackie Robinson dies, and the Concorde makes its last commercial flight, all on this day.
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Morn the Gorn/Wikimedia Commons
AD 79: Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, with the resulting eruption burying and destroying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing an estimated 16,000 people.