4 July
On this day in 1927 the Lockheed Vega had its first flight.
6 June
The Battle of Normandy begins when Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history. Continue reading “1944 – World War II Operation Overlord”
27 May
Three days after sinking the British Battlecruiser Hood, the German Battleship Bismarck is pounded to a wreck by the British Battleships King George V and Rodney, forcing the crew of Bismarck to scuttle their ship.
24 May
A Second World War naval battle between the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, both of which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to attack Allied merchant shipping.
April
USS Thresher (SSN-593) was the lead boat of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines in the United States Navy. She was lost with all hands during deep-diving tests on 10 April 1963.
Continue reading “1963 – Submarine USS Thresher lost at sea”
31 March
The name Titanic was derived from Greek mythology and meant gigantic. Built in Belfast, Ireland, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as it was then known), the RMS Titanic was the second of the three Olympic-class ocean liners—the first was the RMS Olympic and the third was the HMHS Britannic. They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company White Star Line’s fleet, which comprised 29 steamers and tenders in 1912. The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line’s chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, and the American financier J. P. Morgan, who controlled the White Star Line’s parent corporation, the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM). Continue reading “1909 – Construction of the ill fated RMS Titanic begins”
27 March
The Tenerife airport disaster was a fatal runway collision between two Boeing 747s on this day in 1977, at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. The crash killed 583 people, making it the deadliest accident in aviation history. As a result of the complex interaction of organizational influences, environmental preconditions, and unsafe acts leading up to this aircraft mishap, the disaster at Tenerife has served as a textbook example for reviewing the processes and frameworks used in aviation mishap investigations and accident prevention. Continue reading “1977 – Tenerife airport disaster”
24 March
HMS Eurydice was a 26-gun Royal Navy corvette which was the victim of one of Britain’s worst peace-time naval disasters when she sank in 1878. Continue reading “1878 – The British frigate HMS Eurydice sinks, killing more than 300”
11 March
The Great Blizzard of 1888 or Great Blizzard of ’88 (11 March – 14 March, 1888) was one of the most severe recorded blizzards in the history of the United States of America. The storm, referred to as the Great White Hurricane, paralysed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine, as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Continue reading “1888 – The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins”
