The Final Cigarette Ad-When 13 Things Happened For The Last Time

People come and go, leaving behind them a legacy of firsts, lasts, and every milestone in between

The very innovations we swear are top of the line will be obsolete in fewer years than we think

going from a regular occurrence to a distant memory in a weird history video

But the last time someone rented a video from Blockbuster doesn't have to be bittersweet

Narrowing down the last event can be helpful in understanding why and how a historical phenomenon came to an end

So, today, we're running out the clock on some surprising historical final events

Okay, last one in's a rotten egg. In 1936, when she was just 17 years old

Helen Viola Jackson married Civil War veteran James Bolin, and with the War of the Rebellion ending some seven decades before

it made for quite the age gap discourse. Jackson met the 93-year-old Bolin smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression

when times were tough for everyone, but especially a 17-year-old struggling to survive

So the two wed, more out of respect and convenience rather than traditional romantic love

And Bolin promised Jackson she could have his pension after he passed away

Not one to look like an opportunist, Jackson never remarried nor applied to collect Bolin's pension

when he died in 1939. And then in December 2020, Jackson, the last widow of a Civil War veteran

passed away at the age of 101. In the 18th century, if royalty got a bit too comfortable

it was customary to wheel out the old guillotine and relieve them of their crowns

It's easy for us to picture this method of execution during medieval times

It's less easy to picture the blade of a guillotine meeting a criminal's neck at a high speed

the very same year Star Wars premiered in theaters. But that's exactly what happened to Tunisian immigrant Hamida Jandoubi

who was convicted of murder and executed by guillotine in Marseille, France in 1977

The national razor has been gathering dust ever since. While animal species get all the press when it comes to being endangered

many languages have also drifted out of existence. One such Celtic language, Manx, was spoken in remote British areas until 1974

and Edward Ned Madrell, an Isle of Man resident, is listed as the final Manx speaker

Madrell, born in 1877, learned Manx as a boy, spent most of his life as a fisherman

and passed away late in 1974. He did make recordings of himself speaking Manx

before his death, and many have attempted to revitalize the language on the Isle of Man using these recordings Manx a lot Ned Western Union stop Got into telegram game stop

Way back in 1851, stop. They stopped after 155 years of faithful service in 2006

But while that was the last major carrier of telegram service, the conclusion of the telegram itself happened on July 14, 2013 in India

The government-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Telegram Service shut down due to the rise of SMS and smartphones, making a telegram redundant

Today, the only time you get to repeatedly text STOP is when you're opting out of mobile notifications from a bill collector

The Tower of London started out as a royal residence and was never intended to be a prison

But anywhere can be a prison if you're steadfast enough. And eventually, the tower would house famous prisoners

such as Elizabeth Tudor and Guy Fawkes. A pair of brothers hold the distinction

of being the last prisoners held in the tower. In 1952, Ronnie and Reggie Cray

which sound like a pair of henchmen from a Disney film, were members of an organized crime outfit

in London's East End. But their criminal past had nothing to do with their stint in the tower

They just failed to report for military duty. While the Cray-Crays were in and out of jail

for the rest of their lives, the tower retired from prison services thereafter

becoming a repository of documents and royal artifacts. Clerical celibacy goes back to at least the 5th century

However, marriage didn't become forbidden fruit until the 12th century. The Pope was bound by these same rules

though most candidates were either widowers or had renounced their married lives once they started sitting in the big chair

Pope Adrian II, also called Hadrian II, refused to give up his wife and daughter when he became Pope in 867 AD

He was already 75 years old when elected and didn't actually want the role, having turned

it down twice before. As a grim reminder of the importance of these rules, Adrian II's family was kidnapped and

killed by Aleph Therios, the relative of a rival bishop. Maybe this guy shouldn't have been the pope

Adrian II himself would pass away in 872, and with his death would rise the age of the

bachelor pope. Ellis Island opened its ports as an immigration station in 1892

The very first immigrant, Annie Moore, passed through Ellis Island at just 15 years old

And for decades after, millions of immigrants would pass through, hoping for a new life and a Starbucks on every street corner

But U immigration policy changes in the 1920s would see less and less usage of the island And in a massive 180 Alice became a detention and deportation center before becoming a hospital and at times a training center for the Coast Guard In November 1954 a Norwegian man named Arne Pettersson became the final immigrant to leave

Ellis Island after outstaying his shore leave. He was sent back to Norway upon release, and the island now mainly functions as a museum

Despite its adorable name, there was nothing small about smallpox. The disease spanned three centuries and ended the lives of millions of people

Eventually, through variolation, which basically means giving individuals minute amounts of smallpox as a treat, a vaccine was developed during the late 18th century

And by the early 20th century, vaccination had so sufficiently laid the smackdown on

smallpox, that talk of eliminating the disease entirely began to seem like a reality

The last time smallpox reared its ugly, rashy head was in 1977 in Somalia, with the last

noted fatality in 1978. Janet Parker was a medical photographer in a building where a smallpox lab

was held, and she unfortunately caught the last nasty case of it. Two years later, in 1980

the CDC announced that smallpox was totally wiped out, making it the only human disease to be completely eradicated

Since their invention in the 1970s, VHS tapes dominated the home video market

just so long as you were kind and remembered to rewind. However, the end of the 1990s saw the rise of a shiny new competitor, the DVD

By 2001, DVD sales were fast forwarding past VHS at breakneck speed

outnumbering them completely in 2003. By 2005, VHS sales were essentially non-existent

The same year, though unrelated, Viggo Mortensen starred in the David Cronenberg neo-noir film A History of Violence

And one year later, the film was released on DVD as well as VHS

This VHS would mark the last time a major Hollywood movie would be made available on tape

A history of violence and home media technology? What can't Vigo do

By the 1960s, everyone had pretty much figured out that cigarettes were the healthiest things you could be sucking into your lungs

Medical professionals presented more and more evidence that smoking was causing serious health problems

and made calls to lower smoking rates in the U.S. The Federal Trade Commission got involved and in 1964

forced advertisers to start warning consumers of the dangers of smoking. Then in 1970, Congress passed the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act

mandating that all cigarette companies must include warnings on their packaging. And as an added twist to the tobacco knife it gave a date of January 2 1971 as the last time television or radio ads were allowed to advertise cigarettes Cigarette ads took their final exhale on January 1 1971

with Virginia Slims getting the final piece of pufanda on the airwaves

The last known slave ship arrived in the United States in 1860, about 50 years after Congress had

banned the importation of slaves. The ship, named the Clotilda, transferred roughly 110 enslaved

Africans to Alabama. Matilda McCreer, a member of the Yoruba people, was on the Clotilda at just

two years old. Initially accompanied by her mother and three sisters, McCreer was able to stay with

her mother, Grace, and one of her sisters, Sally, but she never saw her other two siblings again

McCreer, who passed away in 1940, was the last survivor from that transatlantic journey

The Alcatraz Island became a federal penitentiary in 1934, and for the next 29 years

became one of the most notorious prisons in the world, home to only the worst of the worst

criminals the US had to offer. Alcatraz housed infamous gangster Al Capone, birdkeeper Robert

Stroud, and machine gun Kelly, the gangster, not the rapper. By the end of the 1950s

an island fortress housing the world's supervillains was just too expensive to operate

and maintain. The government closed in and removed the final inmates in 1963. The last criminal

relocated was convicted robber Frank Weatherman. He boarded a boat with the last of the guards and

upon his exit, Alcatraz never was good for anybody. To be clear, when we discuss the last

flight of the Concord, we're not talking about the final episode of the HBO musical comedy show

though that last episode aired March 22, 2009. In case you were wondering

We're talking about the supersonic passenger aircraft that could get you across the ocean in three hours

But could it make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs? Developed with cooperation between British and French engineers

the Concorde was designed to fly at Mach 2, or 1,350 miles per hour

getting you from Europe to the United States in about three and a half hours. By all accounts, it was pretty '

Starting in 1976, Concordes flew from London to New York and to airports such as Paris and Edinburgh

The aircraft was prohibitively expensive, causing only 20 to ever be built

But passengers who could afford it were treated to the most luxurious service the sky had to offer

while you're ripping through it at the speed of miracles. A July 2000 crash slowed down the Concorde

but the supersonic aircraft continued to be in service until October 2003

just in time for everyone to realize how impractical they were. Hey, bodacity is rarely practical

That's what makes it bodacious