On this day in 1978, marketing manager Gary Thuerk sent the first unsolicited mass email, or as it’s better known today, “spam.”

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On this day in 1933, Scottish newspaper The Inverness Courier published an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen the legendary Loch Ness Monster.

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On this day in 1967, Aretha Franklin's hit song "Respect" was released as a single on the Atlantic Records label.

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On this day in 1962, armed with nearly 800 pounds of explosives, a team of firefighters led by Red Adair extinguished a massive natural gas well fire in the Sahara Desert.

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On this day in 1667, English poet John Milton entered into an agreement to publish his epic poem Paradise Lost.

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On this day in 1778, sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington rode more than 40 miles overnight to warn American militiamen of an impending British attack.

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On this day in 1983, the Kremlin released a letter from Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to Samantha Smith, an 11-year-old American girl who was anxious about the threat of nuclear war.

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On this day in 1964, the second New York World's Fair opened at Flushing Meadows Park in the Queens borough of New York City. 

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On this day in 1980, a 26-year-old New Yorker named Rosie Ruiz cheated her way to victory at the 84th annual Boston Marathon.

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On this day in 1841, Edgar Allan Poe published “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” a tale widely considered to be the first modern detective story. 

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