1994: Too much sugar, apparently, can cloud your judgment. Desperate to fend off a takeover by Coca-Cola or PepsiCo, Quaker Oats Co. takes over another company itself, paying $1.7 billion for Snapple Beverage Co. "This acquisition improves our cash flow potential," says Quaker chairman William Smithburg. Just two days later, Snapple reveals in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it is likely to earn no more than 40 cents per share, versus the 55 cents it had estimated earlierÑbut Quaker goes ahead with the deal anyway. Less than three years later, Quaker unloads Snapple to Triarc Cos. for just $300 million, taking a $1.4 billion lossÑsealing the Snapple deal as one of the dumbest acquisitions ever. And in December, 2000, PepsiCo buys Quaker Oats outright for $13.4 billion.

Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1994, p. 1;USA Today, November 3, 1994, p. 1B;The Wall Street Journal, November 7, 1994, p. B1, and March 28, 1997, p. A3;Allan Sloan, "Quaker Oats and Snapple: Bidding for a Bottler Uncorks Some Whines," Washington Post, November 15, 1994, p. D3;PepsiCo press release, "PepsiCo to Acquire the Quaker Oats Company," December 4, 2000, at http://

1920: The first widespread commercial radio broadcast hits the air as station KDKA in Pittsburgh sends out bulletins on the Presidential election to an audience of hundreds of ham radio operators. The broadcast was made by Leo Rosenberg, speaking through a retooled telephone mouthpiece from a wooden shack on the roof of a Westinghouse factory. His first words were: "We shall now broadcast the election returns."

"It Was Twelve Years Ago," The New York Times, October 30, 1932, p. 6: xx;reprinted in Floyd Norris and Christine Bockelmann, The New York Times Century of Business (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000), pp. 67-68;The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2001, p. A1 (erroneously giving the date as November 6, 1920, which was a Saturday, not Election Day).