YOUR BUSINESS IS OUR BUSINESS: About business on ‘Fried Chicken Day’

What you need to know:

Somewhat consternating is that business events that’d go down well with the title and scope of this column [‘YOUR BUSINESS IS OUR BUSINESS...’] are as difficult to ‘find’ as is the proverbial needle in a haystack! For example: the nearest business-oriented development I could raise was the announcement, on July 6, 1981, by the US-based chemical company ‘DuPont’ that it was “of a mindset to diversify,” as it sought to merge with the Houston (Texas)-based oil company Conoco Inc!

So many significant events happened in History on a date like today’s – July 6 – that it becomes nightmarish to determine what to highlight for my esteemed readers, and what to leave out!

Somewhat consternating is that business events that’d go down well with the title and scope of this column [‘YOUR BUSINESS IS OUR BUSINESS...’] are as difficult to ‘find’ as is the proverbial needle in a haystack! For example: the nearest business-oriented development I could raise was the announcement, on July 6, 1981, by the US-based chemical company ‘DuPont’ that it was “of a mindset to diversify,” as it sought to merge with the Houston (Texas)-based oil company Conoco Inc!

After three months of ‘intense planning, bidding and transacting,’ DuPont merged with Conoco that September.

“The extraordinary vision of not many weeks ago is now a reality, suddenly pulling a debt-laden DuPont into a hydrocarbon raw materials-and-fuels business bigger than its own,” cooed the American Chemical Society on Oct. 5, 1981 in a report titled ‘DuPont completes merger with Conoco.’ [‘Chemical Engineers News’ (1981, 59 (40), pg8)]. Valued at US$7.5bn, the DuPont/Conoco move was to be the biggest merger in history between two corporations. But – much like ‘Good Things’ – ‘Big Things’ NEVER last,’ wags say. As the Sisters of Fate’d have it, the DuPont/Conoco relationship didn’t last much long! In due course, “the biggest merger in US history wound up quietly, as DuPont started selling its Conoco Inc. shares to the public in the late-1990s.

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Oh, I don’t know... Business-related July-6th events worth their weight in gold are very few, indeed. Take, for instance, the ‘National Fried Chicken Day’ celebrated in the US – self-styled ‘Land of the Free and Home of the Brave...!’ Although who/why/how this ‘July-6th feathers-related custom’ begun, observers say ‘fried chicken is an American restaurant staple’ – with some fried chicken restaurants offering special price reductions on National Fried Chicken Day... Sheesh!

More ‘serious’ July-6th events down Memory Lane were the 1939 closure by the Hitler (Holocaust) regime of the ‘last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany;’ the first industrial production of the ‘AK-47’ rifle in Soviet Russia in 1947 – and the ‘first meeting of ’teeneagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney at the Woolton Fete (Liverpool, UK) in 1957 – three years before forming the ‘flash-in-the-pan’ music band ‘The Beatles!’

In My Book of Things, there’re more important/intriguing/fascinating events down History that happened on today’s date: July 6th... For instance, it was on July 6, 1865 that the first issue of the US-based Magazine ‘The Nation’ was published... and Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister – a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog – on July 6, 1885.

Still published today, ‘The Nation’ is reputedly ‘the oldest continuously-published weekly magazine in the US – and the most widely-read weekly journal of liberal/progressive political and cultural news, opinions and analyses. Its Circulation peaked at 187,000 copies in 2006...’ On July 6, 1964, Malawi – previously ‘Nyasaland’ – declared its (political) Independence from the UK... and became a Republic on July 6, 1966 – with Kamuzu Hastings Banda President. Not to be left far behind, The Comoros declared (political) Independence from France on July 6, 1975, under President Ahmed Abdallah...

Still on ‘Matters-Independence,’ the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) begun in earnest on July 6, 1967 when, under President Yakoub Gowon, Nigeria invaded ‘Biafra Republic,’ erstwhile Nigeria’s Eastern (Administrative) Region which had ceceded on May 30, 1967...

The famous American singer and trumpet player Louis Armstrong (born 1901) died on July 6, 1971. Another famous American, businessman Robert McNamara – the 8th US Defence Secretary (born 1916) – died on July 6, 2009.

On a happier note, though, two famous Americans – George W. Bush (businessman and 43rd US President) and Sylvester ‘Rambo’ Stallone (actor, director, and screenwriter) – were born on the same day, July 6, 1946. Happy 71st birth anniversary, Bush fil, Rambo... And, Cheers!