On This Day in History

 Nov 7, 1940:
Tacoma Bridge collapses



Only four months after its completion, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State suffers a spectacular collapse.

When it opened in 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world. Built to replace the ferry system that took commuters from Tacoma across the Tacoma Narrows to the Gig Harbor Peninsula, the bridge spanned 2,800 feet and took three years to build. To save cost, the principle engineer, Leon Moisseiff, designed the bridge with an unusually slender frame that measured 39 feet and accommodated just two vehicular lanes.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened with great fanfare on July 1, 1940. Human traffic across the waters of the Tacoma Narrows increased dramatically, but many drivers were drawn to the toll bridge not by convenience but by an unusual characteristic of the structure. When moderate to high winds blew, as they invariably do in the Tacoma Narrows, the bridge roadway would sway from side to side and sometimes suffer excessive vertical undulations. Some drivers reported that vehicles ahead of them would disappear and reappear several times as they crossed the bridge. On a windy day, tourists treated the bridge toll as the fee paid to ride a roller-coaster ride, and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge earned the nickname "Galloping Gertie."

Attempts were made to stabilize the structure, but they were in vain. On November 7, with a steady wind blowing at 42 mph, the roadway began to twist back and forth in an increasingly violent fashion. Before closing the span, the toll keeper on the bridge's west side let one last motorist pass, Tacoma News Tribune copy editor Leonard Coatsworth. Halfway across the bridge, Coatsworth lost control of his car. When the roadway tipped so sharply that it seemed his car would topple off, he decided to flee on foot. He tried to retrieve his daughter's black cocker spaniel from the back seat of the car, but the dog snapped at him and refused to budge. Coatsworth ran to safety and called the Tribune, who dispatched a reporter and photographer to the scene.

Tribune photographer Howard Clifford was the last man on the bridge before the center span broke off at 11 a.m. and plunged 190 feet into the turbulent Tacoma Narrows. Trapped on the suddenly destabilized side spans, he narrowly avoided being thrown off and ran to safety. The sole casualty of the disaster was the cocker spaniel in Coatsworth's car, which fell into the Narrows and disappeared beneath the foam.

At the time, the engineering community was perplexed about how a bridge designed to withstand winds of up to 120 mph could collapse in a wind of 42 mph. Experts still disagree on the exact cause of the bridge's destruction, but most agree the collapse was related to resonance, a phenomenon that also comes into play when a soprano shatters a glass with her voice. In the case of the Tacoma Narrows, the wind resonated with the natural frequency of the structure, causing a steady increase in amplitude until the bridge was destroyed.

After the Tacoma Narrows disaster, bridge builders took care to incorporate aerodynamics into their designs and build structures with complex frequencies. Wind-tunnel testing of bridge designs eventually became mandatory. A new Tacoma Narrows Bridge was finally erected in 1950, complete with a wider roadway, deep stiffening trusses under the roadway, and other features designed to dampen the effect of wind. In 1992, the remains of Galloping Gertie in the Tacoma Narrows were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

On This Day in History

Nov 6, 1860:

Abraham Lincoln elected president

 

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.
Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and former Whig representative to Congress, first gained national stature during his campaign against Stephen Douglas of Illinois for a U.S. Senate seat in 1858. The senatorial campaign featured a remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue, known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery, while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the young Republican Party. In 1860, Lincoln won the party's presidential nomination.
In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckinridge and Bell. The announcement of Lincoln's victory signaled the secession of the Southern states, which since the beginning of the year had been publicly threatening secession if the Republicans gained the White House.
By the time of Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. One month later, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In 1863, as the tide turned against the Confederacy, Lincoln emancipated the slaves and in 1864 won reelection. In April 1865, he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after the American Civil War effectively ended with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
For preserving the Union and bringing an end to slavery, and for his unique character and powerful oratory, Lincoln is hailed as one of the greatest American presidents.

 

 

Has Sandy saved President Obama?

This US Air Force photo shows an aerial view of the rollercoaster from the Seaside Heights amusement park on the New Jersey shore submerged in surf

Has Sandy saved President Obama? Comforter-in-chief takes center stage in Atlantic City (while Romney is left on sidelines)

• President takes one-hour helicopter tour over Atlantic Coast, viewing flooded homes and wrecked buildings
• Superstorm Sandy has claimed lives of at least 76 people on East Coast with New Jersey and NYC badly affected
• Obama skipped campaigning in battleground states in favour of visit to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's state
• Gov Christie: 'We've got a big task ahead of us that we have to do together. This is what New Jerseyans are built for'
• Obama will return to campaign trail today with trips to Green Bay, Wisconsin; Boulder, Colorado;and Las Vegas

President Obama took time out from the campaign trail yesterday to visit a stretch of the devastated New Jersey coast and take on a role of comforter-in-chief that could be a major boost to his hopes of re-election next week.
The President was accompanied by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican bruiser and Mitt Romney backer who showered him with effusive praise for his handling of Superstorm Sandy, giving President Obama a bipartisan sheen that aides believe could help him secure victory on Tuesday. 
Leaving Republican presidential candidate Mr Romney on the sidelines holding campaign events in Florida in which he had to pull his punches and barely featured on TV, President Obama travelled to Atlantic City in New Jersey to get an aerial view of the widespread damage caused by the storm.

On This Day in History

 Nov 4, 1928:
One of New York's most notorious gamblers is shot to death



Arnold Rothstein, New York's most notorious gambler, is shot and killed during a poker game at the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan. After finding Rothstein bleeding profusely at the service entrance of the hotel, police followed his trail of blood back to a suite where a group of men were playing cards. Reportedly, Rothstein had nothing good in his final hand.

From an early age, Rothstein had a talent for playing numbers. As a teenager, he built a small fortune gambling in craps and poker games, and by age 20 he owned and operated his own casino. Rothstein became a legendary figure in New York because of his unparalleled winning streak in bets and card games. However, it is believed that he usually won by fixing the events. The most famous instance of this was in 1919 when the World Series was fixed. Abe Attell, a friend and employee of Rothstein, paid some of the key players on the Chicago White Sox to throw the games. When the scandal was uncovered, Rothstein fiercely denied any involvement to a grand jury and escaped indictment. In private, however, Rothstein never denied his role, preferring to enjoy the outlaw image.

In the 1920's, Rothstein began purchasing nightclubs, racehorses, and brothels. He had such a formidable presence in the criminal underworld that he was reportedly once paid half a million dollars to mediate a gang war. As Rothstein's fortune grew to an estimated $50 million, he became a high-level loan shark, liberally padding the pockets of police and judges to evade the law. He is fabled to have carried around $200,000 in pocket money at all times.

Rothstein's luck finally ran out in 1928 when he encountered an unprecedented losing streak. At a poker game in September with "Hump" McManus, "Nigger Nate" Raymond, and "Titanic" Thompson, Rothstein lost a cool $320,000 and then refused to pay on the grounds that the game had been rigged. Two months later, McManus invited Rothstein to play what would be his final poker game.

Asked who had shot him before dying, Rothstein reportedly put his finger to his lips, keeping the gangsters' code of silence. McManus was later tried and acquitted of the crime.

New Jersey Gas Lines Stretch for Miles and Miles

More than 1,000 New Jersey gas stations are unable to sell fuel due to power outages and delivery problems, according to the head of one of the state's gas station associations.

Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline-Convenience-Automotive Association, which represents 1,500 stations, told us by phone that 75 percent of his members have shut down fueling.

"There's difficulty getting supply from the pipeline, to distribution centers, to the trucks, to the gas stations, and then the final hurdle, getting it into car. So there [are] difficulties along every point."

Many stations don't have power to pump gas. Those with power are pumping fuel until they run out.

Although some refineries remain shut down, they still have fuel in storage. But trucks are having trouble making it to the stations because roads remain blocked by trees and flooding.

Additionally, there are more cars on the road since many bus and train lines remain suspended.

Risalvato said none of his clients are gouging.

"There's nobody rationing. When a retailer has gas, he's pumping until he has no more."

Two separate people we talked to today, who otherwise have power, said that gasoline was their main concern, in part because it's fueling generators.

Facebook is filling up with questions about where gas can be found. On Twitter, resourceful NJ residents are using the #njgas tag to find out what gas stations are open and how long the lines are.

Gas lines over a mile long, with more than 150 cars, are now a common sight across the state. Waits are up to three hours.

Josh Brown at the Reformed Broker perfectly captures the mood:

And this morning at 6 am I got on one, sat for an hour and then saw all the cars ahead of me start to pull away. I thought I was in luck! Turns out the guy ran out of gas and was closing the station. Hilarious!

I'm not sure how much longer this can go on for...the novelty is wearing off.

On This Day in History

 Nov 2, 1947:
Spruce Goose flies



The Hughes Flying Boat—the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.

Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record. In 1938, he flew around the world in a record three days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes.

Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the "Spruce Goose" was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality. Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.

Development of the Spruce Goose cost a phenomenal $23 million and took so long that the war had ended by the time of its completion in 1946. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. On November 2, 1947, Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing.

Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, who became increasingly eccentric and withdrawn after 1950, refused to neglect what he saw as his greatest achievement in the aviation field. From 1947 until his death in 1976, he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous, climate-controlled hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic is a village and census-designated place in New London County, Connecticut, in the United States. The population was 4,205 at the 2010 census. A historic locality, Mystic has no independent government because it is not a legally recognized municipality in the state of Connecticut. Rather, Mystic is located within the towns of Groton (west of the Mystic River, and also known as West Mystic) and Stonington (east of the Mystic River).

Historically a leading seaport of the area, the story of Mystic's nautical connection is told at Mystic Seaport, the nation's largest maritime museum, which has preserved a number of sailing ships (most notably the whaleship Charles W. Morgan) and seaport buildings. The village is located on the Mystic River, which flows into Long Island Sound, providing access to the sea. The Mystic River Bascule Bridge crosses the river in the center of the village.Before the 17th century, the Pequot people had established an empire across southeastern Connecticut. For many years, historians believed that they migrated in the 16th century from eastern New York. Archaeological evidence showing the presence of a people who lived in an area called Gungywump, somewhat northwest of the Mystic River, now suggests that the Pequot were indigenous to southeastern Connecticut.

The Pequot built their first village overlooking the western bank of the Mystic River, called Siccanemos, in the year 1665. By that time, the Pequot were in control of a considerable amount of territory, extending toward the Pawcatuck River to the east and the Connecticut River to the west, providing them with full access to the waters. They also had supremacy over some of the most strategically located terrain. To the northwest, the Five Nations of the Iroquois dominated the land linked by the Great Lakes and the Hudson River, allowing for trading to occur between the Iroquois Nations and the Dutch. The Pequot were settled just distant enough to be secure from any danger that the Iroquois posed.


As the Europeans came closer in contact with the natives, along the coast of Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, they brought along with them diseases, such as smallpox, plague, measles and other illnesses that depopulated entire villages, killing between 55 to 95 percent of coastal people.The Narragansett tribe, who lived a considerable distance from the coast, were able to develop some resistance to European diseases, or the diseases evolved lower virulence as they were transmitted inland.

The Pequot were located between the English and the Dutch. To the east of the Pequot, the English had begun to gain bits and pieces along Massachusetts Bay during the 1620s. Relations between the Native Americans and the English remained ambiguous and rather hostile at times as Separatists from the Church of England settled on the Plymouth Plantation. Their relations, however, allowed the establishment of trade with the Plymouth colonists as far west as Narragansett Bay, if not with the Narragansett nation itself. The English eventually began to trade with the Dutch as well. Today Mystic is A major New England tourist destination, the village is home to the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, known for its research department, concern with marine life rehabilitation, and its popular beluga whales. The business district on either side of the bascule bridge where U.S. Route 1 crosses the Mystic River contains many restaurants. Local sailing cruises are available on the traditional sailing ship Argia. Short day tours and longer evening cruises are available on the 1908 steamer Sabino departing Mystic Seaport.