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Great Chicago Fire / Microwave / Imagine / DHS
On This Day (October 8): Your quick daily trip back in time.
Fatih Taskiran
October 08, 2025
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🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning — it’s Wednesday, October 8. Today, we'll discover the Second Opium War, the Great Fires of 1871, the invention of the microwave oven, the first enclosed shopping mall, the song "Imagine", and much more.
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— Fatih Taskiran, Editor
🚀 Time Machine
-1769 | James Cook landed in New Zealand for the first time, at Poverty Bay near the Tūranganui River. |
-1856 | The Second Opium War, or Second Anglo-Chinese War, began with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River. |
-1871 | The Peshtigo Fire, now recognized as the most devastating fire in U.S. history, occurred in Wisconsin. Even with the massive scale of the blaze, it was overshadowed by the nearby Great Chicago Fire. |
-1871 | The Great Chicago Fire started, killing about 300 people and destroying 4 square miles of buildings. |
-1915 | The Battle of Loos ended with German forces stopping the British attack. This resulted in about 85,000 casualties. |
-1917 | Leon Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet when the Bolsheviks took control. |
-1945 | Raytheon patented the microwave oven, now a staple kitchen appliance worldwide. |
-1956 | The first enclosed shopping mall in the U.S., Southdale Mall, opened in a Minneapolis suburb. |
-1967 | The Bolivian army defeats Che Guevara's guerrillas. He was wounded, captured, and executed the next day. |
-1971 | John Lennon released his megahit single "Imagine". |
-2001 | President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security. |
-2014 | Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with a case of Ebola Virus Disease in the U.S., dies at age 42. |
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🗨️ Final Words
🏆 FlashQuiz
Did we make history today? |
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