Cellular mobile phone service was made available to the American public for the first time.
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The US government began its trade embargo against Cuba.
The Safety Hood, which would later become the gas mask, was patented by Garrett Morgan.
Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard in a record-breaking $69 billion takeover.
The American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan posthumously won a Nobel prize in literature.
A painting called 'Abstraktes' by Gerhard Richter sold for a record $34 million.
