On this day in history: Black Monday, 1987

On Monday, 19th October, 1987, the world economy was rocked by a series of stock market crashes. The economic meltdown began when the Hong Kong stock exchange opened and share values began to plummet. As the other exchanges opened around the world they all suffered the same fate, resulting in the largest ever percentage decline in share values in a single day, which quickly became known as 'Black Monday'.

Over the previous year, the rapid economic growth of the mid-1980s began to slow culminating in small falls in the value of shares over the week before the crash. By the end of the month stock markets around the world were counting the cost of the meltdown: the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the United States fell by 23%; shares on the Financial Times Stock Exchange Index in the UK lost 26% of their value; the Spanish stock market saw a 31% decline; in Australia the collapse was 42%; the Hong Kong market suffered a loss of 46%; the New Zealand stock market was particularly badly by the crash that wiped away 60% of the value of shares.

To learn more see Mark Carlson's report "A Brief History of the 1987 Stock Market Crash with a Discussion of the Federal Reserve Response," (2007), a pdf file produced by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

On this day in history: London Beer Flood, 1814

At about 6pm on Monday 17th October, 1814, an explosion rocked the West-End of London.
A giant vat full of fermenting porter (a dark coloured malt based beer), on top of the Meux's Brewery Co Ltd, violently burst releasing over half-a-million litres of liquid. This started a domino-effect as the other vats in the brewery also exploded. A flood of over one-million litres of beer consumed the nearby slum streets of the parish of St. Giles.

The deluge demolished two houses and damaged the Tavistock Arms public house on Great Russell Street, resulting in the death of 14-year-old barmaid Eleanor Cooper. Another eight people also lost their life in the disaster, most of them drowned, some of them died from injuries inflicted by the torrent, and one later died of alcohol poisoning. Tragically, many bereaved families were so impoverished that they exhibited their dead in return for a fee.

On this day in history: Rodney Riots, 1968

On 16th October 1968, the students of the University of West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica became the latest to join in with the worldwide student protests of that year. The spark that lit the flame, in this case, was the Jamaican government's decision to bar Dr. Walter Rodney from returning to the country to continue his job as a lecturer at the university. Rodney, an influential left-wing historian of Africa and vocal participant in the Black Power movement, had been attending a conference in Montreal, Canada, when he returned to Jamaica the authorities would not let him disembark from the plane as he had been identified as a prohibited immigrant because of his visits to the USSR and Cuba.

When the students of UWI heard of Dr. Rodney's plight they caused such disruption on the campus that the university was forced to close. They then took their demonstrations onto the streets, marching first to Prime Minister Hugh Shearer's residence and then on to the parliament in Kingston. As the students marched other demonstrators joined in and the protests became increasingly violent and spread throughout the city leaving several dead and millions of dollars worth of damage to property.