History Made Every Day™

Explosion at Port Chicago
On the evening of July 17, 1944, during World War II, two American merchant ships, the SS Quinault Victory and SS E.A. Bryan, were loaded with ammunition at the Port Chicago munitions facility, 30 miles north of San Francisco. The holds were packed with 4,600 tons of explosives--bombs, depth charges and ammunition. Another 400 tons of explosives were nearby on rail cars. Approximately 320 workers were on or near the pier when, at 10:18 p.m., a series of massive explosions over several seconds destroyed everything and everyone in the vicinity. The blasts were felt as far away as Nevada and the resulting damage extended as far as San Francisco. Every building in Port Chicago was damaged and people were literally knocked off their feet. Smoke and fire extended nearly two miles into the air. As segregated African-American naval units had been assigned the dangerous work—without much in the way of training--nearly two-thirds of the people killed at Port Chicago were African-American enlisted men, 15 percent of all African-Americans killed during World War II.

Great Chicago Fire
A massive fire was ignited in the city of Chicago on the night of October 8, 1871. According to legend, the blaze began when the O’Leary family’s cow knocked over a lantern at around 9 p.m. Whether or not the bovine was to blame, the fire grew quickly and burned out of control until October 10, destroying nearly 18,000 buildings and a total of $200 million worth of property, about $3 billion in today’s money. Between 200 and 300 people were killed and 100,000 more were left homeless. The fire also prompted an outbreak of looting and lawlessness that was only quelled when the military was called in to restore order.

September 11th
At 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more on higher floors. Eighteen minutes later, a second Boeing 767--United Airlines Flight 175--appeared, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the south tower. The collision caused a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and the streets below. And, even as millions watched in horror the events unfolding in New York, another plane, American Airlines Flight 77, circled over downtown Washington and slammed into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m. Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to a structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building. All told, 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon along with all 64 people aboard the airliner. Within the next hour, both towers of the World Trade Center, unable to withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel, collapsed. Close to 3,000 people died, including a staggering 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to save trapped office workers. Meanwhile, a fourth hijacked plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, after passengers onboard learned of the New York and D.C. attacks and rushed the cockpit. All 44 people onboard were killed.

Great Peshtigo Fire
The most devastating fire in United States history began on October 7, 1871, at an unknown spot in the dense Wisconsin forest. It first spread to the small village of Sugar Bush, where every resident was killed. High winds then sent the 200-foot flames racing northeast toward the neighboring community of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a company lumber and sawmill town owned by William Ogden that was then home to one of the largest wood-products factories in the United States. As the fire raged through the day on October 8, 1,200 people in Peshtigo lost their lives and an estimated 2 billion trees were consumed by flames. Temperatures reached 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing trees to literally explode in the flames. Two hundred people died in a single tavern. Others fled to a nearby river, where several people died from drowning. Three people who sought refuge in a water tank boiled to death when the fire heated the tank. A mass grave of nearly 350 people was established because extensive burns made it impossible to identify the bodies. Despite the fact that this was the worst fire in American history, newspaper headlines on subsequent days were dominated by the story of another devastating, though smaller, blaze: the Great Chicago Fire.

Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the world's first atom bomb over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. “Little Boy,” as the bomb was known, exploded 1,900 feet over a hospital, unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. Approximately 80,000 people were killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 were injured. At least another 60,000 were dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city's 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before--only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying. So many spontaneous fires broke out as a result of the bomb that a crewman of the Enola Gay stopped trying to count them. Three days later, a second atom bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” was dropped 1,650 feet above the city of Nagasaki, and exploded with the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city contained some of Fat Man’s destructive force, but the number of people killed is still estimated at anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).

Eruption of Krakatau
One of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in history occurred on Krakatau (also called Krakatoa), a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on August 27, 1883. Heard as far as 2,000 miles away, the blast is believed to have produced the largest sound in recorded history. The explosions threw five cubic miles of earth--two-thirds of the island--50 miles into the air with a force equal to 10 atomic bombs. The eruption created 120-foot tsunamis and shock waves that circled the Earth seven times. All told, the explosions killed 36,000 people, injured thousands of others and wiped out 165 Indonesian villages.

Disaster at Chernobyl
On April 26, 1986, the world's worst nuclear power plant accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. Chernobyl had four reactors, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electric power. On the evening of April 25, 1986, a group of engineers began an electrical-engineering experiment on the Number 4 reactor. The engineers, however, had little knowledge of reactor physics, and their experiment soon went awry, errors were compounded by more errors, and, the next day, an explosion blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. It was not a nuclear explosion, as nuclear power plants are incapable of producing such a reaction, but was chemical, driven by the ignition of gases and steam. In the explosion and ensuing fire, more than 50 tons of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere, where it was carried by air currents. Thirty-two people died and dozens more suffered radiation burns in the opening days of the crisis, as Soviet officials attempted to cover up the accident. Eventually an estimated 5,000 Soviet citizens eventually died from cancer and other radiation-induced illnesses caused by their exposure to the Chernobyl radiation; the health of millions was adversely affected.

Halifax Explosion
At 9:05 a.m. on December 6, 1917, in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurred when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, exploded 20 minutes after colliding with another vessel. The Mont Blancwas packed with highly explosive munitions, including 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high-octane gasoline and 10 tons of gun cotton. The explosion set the picric acid ablaze, and as the crew abandoned ship and alerted the local fire department, a crowd gathered at the pier to watch the burning ship. Before the fire department could set up at the site the ship exploded in a blinding white flash. The massive blast killed more than 1,800 people, injured another 9,000--including blinding 200--and destroyed 1,600 homes and almost the entire north end of the city of Halifax. The resulting shock wave shattered windows 50 miles away, and the sound of the explosion could be heard hundreds of miles away.

Tambora Eruption
The Tambora volcano, located on Sumbawa Island in Indonesia, produced a series of powerful eruptions in April 1815. The first of these, on April 10, sent ash 20 miles into the atmosphere and covered the island with ash to a height of 1.5 meters. Five days later, Tambora erupted again, this time so powerfully that it was heard thousands of miles away and the ash expelled blocked the sun for several days. Flaming hot debris thrown into the surrounding ocean caused a tsunami and explosions of steam. So much rock and ash was thrown out of Tambora, in fact, that the height of the volcano was reduced from 14,000 to 9,000 feet. Ten thousand people were killed by the eruptions, most on Sumbawa Island. In subsequent months, more than 80,000 people died in the surrounding area from starvation due to the resulting crop failures and disease. Amazingly, the eruptions affected the climate worldwide. Enough ash had been thrown into the atmosphere that global temperatures were reduced over the next year; and the eruption was even blamed for snow and frost in New England during June and July. The effect was so noticeable that 1815 was nicknamed “the year without a summer.”

Largest-ever Nuclear Explosion
In October 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union exploded the world’s largest-ever nuclear device, a 58-megaton bomb. The enormous bomb was nearly 4,000 times more powerful than “Little Boy,” the atom bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. The bomb--which created the biggest manmade explosion in history--was part of a military test conducted over the Artic Island of Novaya Zemlya. The cloud resulting from the explosion rose 40 miles into the sky and the resulting shock wave was still perceptible after traveling more than three times around the world. The bomb was four times bigger than any nuclear bomb ever exploded by the United States--it was made so big to help the Soviets make up for a lack of accuracy in their missiles. 

Fauld Explosion
On November 27, 1944, one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions occurred when a chain reaction of blasts was set off at Fauld, an underground British munitions depot. At least 3,400 tons of ordnance were ignited, and the resulting explosion left a 100-foot-deep, 250-yard-wide crater in the Earth near the village of Burton upon Trent. Seventy people were killed, 31 of which died when a nearby reservoir was destroyed, and sent an avalanche of mud into a nearby factory. 

The Daisy Cutter
The 15,000-pound BLU-82 bomb, called the “daisy cutter” because it was first used to clear jungle, is known as the world’s largest conventional bomb. At about 17 feet long and five feet wide, the bomb is about as big as a small car and is so heavy that it must be pushed out the back of the plane rather than dropped from the plane’s underside. The BLU-82 mixes ammonium nitrate—six times the amount used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing—with aluminum and air to create an enormous explosion and obliterate everything within 600 yards. The resulting shock wave can be felt for miles. The BLU-82 was first employed by the United States in March 1970 during the Vietnam War, when it was used to clear jungle to create helicopter landing areas. It was later used in the 1991 Gulf War to clear minefields and against ground forces and is currently being used in Afghanistan. The huge bomb can level trees and buildings, kill within about three acres of its impact point and rupture the eardrums and lungs of anyone within 500 feet.

Fire on the Forrestal
On July 29, 1967, off the coast of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, a fire broke out on the U.S. aircraft carrier Forrestal when a Zuni rocket was accidentally fired from an F-4 Phantom fighter jet parked on the flight deck. The rocket struck the fuel tank of a parked A-4D Skyhawk, which then burst, sending highly flammable jet fuel onto the carrier’s deck. Flames spread rapidly across the deck, where the carrier’s other fully loaded planes sat ready for launch. The fire exploded the bombs and rockets onboard the planes, as wind and fuel from the planes’ tanks quickly spread the raging inferno. The fire and explosions took the lives of 134 crewmen and injured 62 more. Of the carrier's 80 planes, 21 were destroyed and 42 were damaged. It was the worst U.S. naval disaster in a combat zone since World War II.

Honkeiko Coal Mine Disaster
The worst mining disaster in history occurred on April 26, 1942 when more than 1,500 people died in a gas and coal-dust explosion at China’s Honkeiko coal mine. The mine was located in Manchuria, which was then occupied by the Japan.

Courrieres Coal Mine Disaster
On March 10, 1906, a huge explosion rocked the Courrieres mine near the Pas-de-Calais Mountains in northern France. The previous afternoon, a fire had broken out 270 meters underground in an area known as the Cecil pit. Unable to extinguish it, workers decided to seal off the pit to starve the fire of oxygen. Unfortunately, cracks in the pit’s walls allowed in flammable gases, which were then ignited by the still-smoldering fire. The resulting blast sent fire raging throughout the mines. At total of 1,060 workers were killed, including several people at ground level and a rescue party sent in to look for survivors. Hundreds more suffered serious injuries.

» back to top