Fact #10995
When:
Short story:
Montana, USA, newspaper The Billings Gazette reports that a destructive epidemic of black stem rust, which damages wheat crops, has spread to most counties in North Dakota, USA. Bob Dylan was a young teenage boy, living in neighbouring Minnesota, when this ecological disaster took place. His song The Ballad Of Hollis Brown is about a [fictional] farmer who, driven to distraction by the loss of his livelihood to black stem rust, kills himself and all of his family.
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