Quest For Knowledge Mini History Lesson For Today: On August 13, 1878, the first victim of the devastating yellow fever outbreak that occurred in Memphis, Tennessee. Kate Bionda had contracted the disease after a man escaped from a quarantined steamboat and visited the restaurant she owned. Yellow fever infections quickly began to spread through Memphis, prompting 25,000 residents to pick up and leave within one week. However, for a variety of reasons, some decided to stay, and those who did began dying at an alarming rate of 200 per day, leaving corpses lying about everywhere. Almost never-ending funeral bells tolled. The widespread epidemic affected many more parts of the southeast before finally ending in October, but only after costing 20,000 people their lives. Also, on August 13, 1961, Soviet troops began placing barbed wire and bricks as a barrier to divide Soviet controlled East Berlin from democratic West Berlin. This was done to stem the tide of East Germans who were leaving daily. When the Soviets placed a barrier dividing the city, residents of both sides were suddenly cut off from friends and family on the opposite side. However, East Germans still kept escaping. The Russians would soon remedy the situation by replacing the measly barrier with a six foot high wall that ran for 96 miles and was laced with barb wire and machine gun positions. The new wall evoked more outrage than any barrier ever could.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 15:40:03 +0000
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