This Day in History

 May 31, 1889:
The Johnstown Flood



In a river valley in central Pennsylvania, heavy rain and a neglected dam lead to a catastrophe in which 2,209 people die and a prosperous city, Johnstown, is nearly wiped off the face of the earth.

Johnstown, located at the confluence of the Little Conemaugh River and Stony Creek, was 14 miles downstream from Lake Conemaugh, a reservoir turned recreational lake that was owned and maintained by the prestigious South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The sporting club, which catered to a wealthy clientele from nearby Pittsburgh, included Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick on its membership rolls. Lake Conemaugh was held back by the South Fork Dam, a large earth-fill dam that was completed by the club in 1881. By 1889, the dam was in dire need of repairs.

When several days of heavy rain struck the area in late May 1889, club officials struggled to reinforce the neglected dam, which was under tremendous pressure from the swollen waters of Lake Conemaugh. The dam began to disintegrate, and on May 31 the lake's water level passed over the top of the dam. Realizing that the dam's collapse was imminent, club officials sent riders down the valley to evacuate area residents. However, flooding was a familiar occurrence in the valley, and few Johnstown residents heeded the riders' desperate warnings. Most just took the same simple precautions they did when Little Conemaugh River flooded: They moved their belongings to the second story of their homes and settled down to wait out the storm.

At 3:10 p.m., the South Fork Dam washed away, drowning several laborers who were struggling to maintain it. Club officials on high ground watched awe-struck as 20 million tons of water went roaring down the valley toward Johnstown. The deluge swept through the communities of South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, and East Conemaugh, accumulating debris, including rocks, trees, houses, barns, railroad cars, animals, and people, both dead and alive. By the time it reached Johnstown, at 4:07 p.m., the flood appeared as a rolling hill of debris more than 30 feet high and nearly half a mile wide. In a terrible swoop, the northern half of the city was swept away, sending some 1,500 demolished Johnstown buildings tumbling down with the roaring torrent.

It took 10 minutes for the waters of Lake Conemaugh to pass through Johnstown, and 2,000 people were drowned or crushed in the torrent. A few survivors were washed up along with numerous corpses several miles down the valley. At the old Stone Bridge in Johnstown, debris piled 40 feet high caught fire, and some 80 huddled survivors of the flood perished in the flames. A total of 2,209 died as a result of the disaster.

Among the survivors of the calamity, there was a scarcely an individual who had not lost a friend or relative in the Johnstown Flood. Despite the great scale of the tragedy, reconstruction of the devastated community began almost immediately, and Clara Barton and the American Red Cross constructed shelters for homeless residents while well-wishers around the country sent tons of relief supplies. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was widely criticized for its failure to maintain the South Fork Dam, but no successful lawsuits were ever brought against the organization.

This Day in History

 May 30, 1997:
Jonathan Levin is tortured and killed by his former student



Jonathan Levin, a popular 31-year-old English teacher, is stabbed and shot to death in his Upper West Side apartment in New York City. The son of Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin, Jonathan was known by many to be wealthy. When he did not show up for work, investigators searched his apartment and found his lifeless body bound to a chair with duct tape. Levin's bankcard was missing from his wallet, and $800 had been removed from his account around the time that he was killed.

Police learned from Levin's answering machine tape that Corey Arthur, a former student in Levin's remedial English class at William H. Taft High School in the Bronx, called Levin on May 30 to arrange a meeting. Apparently, Arthur and his accomplice, Montoun Hart, tortured Levin with a kitchen knife in order to get him to tell them his debit card code. They turned on the vacuum cleaner and stereo to cover up his screams.

Arthur, arrested a week after the murders, first claimed that he had been at Levin's apartment smoking crack when two other men came in and killed him. However, his story lost its credibility at trial when his fingerprints were found on the duct tape. Even still, Arthur denied being the one who pulled the trigger of the fatal shot.

Arthur was found guilty of second-degree murder and received 25 years to life in prison. Hart, despite his 11-page signed confession, was acquitted after convincing jurors that the confession had been coerced out of him when he was drunk.

This Day in History

 May 29, 2005:
Danica Patrick becomes first woman to lead Indy 500

On this day in 2005, 23-year-old Danica Patrick becomes the first female driver to take the lead in the storied Indianapolis 500.

Having previously distinguished herself in the Toyota Atlantic series, Patrick had qualified fourth--another best for a woman--for the 89th Indianapolis 500, only her fifth Indy Racing League event. (Toyota Atlantic served as a feeder system for the Champ Car Series, Indy's rival open-wheel racing circuit. Open-wheel cars are sophisticated vehicles built specifically for racing, with small, open cockpits and wheels located outside the car's main body.) Patrick entered the Indy 500 in a car co-owned by Bobby Rahal, winner of the Indy 500 in 1986, and David Letterman, the late-night talk show host. After a pit stop on the 79th lap of the 200-lap, 500-mile race, Patrick stalled her engine, falling from 4th to 16th place. She spent the next 70 laps climbing back into the top 10, then took the lead with 10 laps left in front of 300,000 screaming fans at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

When her team took a gamble that she could make it to the end without an additional pit stop, Patrick was forced to conserve fuel. With six laps left, British driver Dan Wheldon passed her. With his first Indy 500 win, Wheldon became the first Briton to claim victory at the event since Graham Hill in 1966. Patrick, meanwhile, finished in fourth place, behind Vitor Meira and Bryan Herta. Her stellar performance earned her Rookie of the Year honors and a place in the history books alongside Janet Guthrie, who exactly 28 years before--on May 29, 1977--had become the first woman to drive in the Indy 500. Three women before Patrick had driven in a combined 15 Indy 500 events; Guthrie was the previous top finisher, coming in ninth place in 1978.

Three years after Patrick's star-making turn at the Indy 500, she became the first woman to win an Indy Racing League event, defeating the two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves by nearly six seconds in the Indy Japan 300. Having left her previous team a year earlier, Patrick had joined the team owned by Michael Andretti, son of the legendary driver Mario Andretti and a former racer himself. In a statement honoring Patrick's victory, fellow Indy driver Sarah Fisher linked the accomplishment with that of Guthrie and other trailblazing women: "Today marks the celebration for all of us who have chipped away at the barriers that many women have faced in fields that are dominated by men. To finally have a female win an open-wheel race is simply a progression of what Janet Guthrie started.

This Day in History

 May 27, 1941:
Bismarck sunk by Royal Navy



On May 27, 1941, the British navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France. The German death toll was more than 2,000.

On February 14, 1939, the 823-foot Bismarck was launched at Hamburg. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler hoped that the state-of-the-art battleship would herald the rebirth of the German surface battle fleet. However, after the outbreak of war, Britain closely guarded ocean routes from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean, and only U-boats moved freely through the war zone.

In May 1941, the order was given for the Bismarck to break out into the Atlantic. Once in the safety of the open ocean, the battleship would be almost impossible to track down, all the while wreaking havoc on Allied convoys to Britain. Learning of its movement, Britain sent almost the entire British Home Fleet in pursuit. On May 24, the British battle cruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales intercepted it near Iceland. In a ferocious battle, the Hood exploded and sank, and all but three of the 1,421 crewmen were killed. The Bismarck escaped, but because it was leaking fuel it fled for occupied France. On May 26, it was sighted and crippled by British aircraft, and on May 27 three British warships descended on the Bismarck and finished it off.

This Day in History

 May 26, 1897:
Dracula goes on sale in London



The first copies of the classic vampire novel Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appear in London bookshops on this day in 1897.

A childhood invalid, Stoker grew up to become a football (soccer) star at Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation, he got a job in civil service at Dublin Castle, where he worked for the next 10 years while writing drama reviews for the Dublin Mail on the side. In this way, Stoker met the well-respected actor Sir Henry Irving, who hired him as his manager. Stoker stayed in the post for most of the next three decades, writing Irving's voluminous correspondence for him and accompanying him on tours in the United States. Over the years, Stoker began writing a number of horror stories for magazines, and in 1890 he published his first novel, The Snake's Pass.

Stoker would go on to publish 17 novels in all, but it was his 1897 novel Dracula that eventually earned him literary fame and became known as a masterpiece of Victorian-era Gothic literature. Written in the form of diaries and journals of its main characters, Dracula is the story of a vampire who makes his way from Transylvania--a region of Eastern Europe now in Romania--to Yorkshire, England, and preys on innocents there to get the blood he needs to live. Stoker had originally named the vampire "Count Wampyr." He found the name Dracula in a book on Wallachia and Moldavia written by retired diplomat William Wilkinson, which he borrowed from a Yorkshire public library during his family's vacations there.

Vampires--who left their burial places at night to drink the blood of humans--were popular figures in folk tales from ancient times, but Stoker's novel catapulted them into the mainstream of 20th-century literature. Upon its release, Dracula enjoyed moderate success, though when Stoker died in 1912 none of his obituaries even mentioned Dracula by name. Sales began to take off in the 1920s, when the novel was adapted for Broadway. Dracula mania kicked into even higher gear with Universal's blockbuster 1931 film, directed by Tod Browning and starring the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi. Dozens of vampire-themed movies, television shows and literature followed, though Lugosi, with his exotic accent, remains the quintessential Count Dracula. Late 20th-century examples of the vampire craze include the bestselling novels of American writer Anne Rice and the cult hit TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This Day in History

 May 25, 1935:
Babe Ruth hits last home run



On May 25, 1935, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Babe Ruth hits his 714th home run, a record for career home runs that would stand for almost 40 years. This was one of Ruth’s last games, and the last home run of his career. Ruth went four for four on the day, hitting three home runs and driving in six runs.

George Herman Ruth was born February 6, 1895, in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the first of eight children, but only he and a sister survived infancy. Ruth’s father was a saloon keeper on Baltimore’s waterfront, and the young George, known as "Gig" (pronounced with soft g’s) to his family, caused trouble from an early age. At seven, his truancy from school led his parents to declare him incorrigible, and he was sent to an orphanage, St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. Ruth lived there until he was 19 in 1914, when he was signed as a pitcher by the Baltimore Orioles.

That same summer, Ruth was sold to the Boston Red Sox. His teammates called him "Babe," short for baby, for his naiveté, but his talent was already mature, and he was almost immediately recognized as the best pitcher on one of the great teams of the 1910s. He set a record between 1916 and 1918 with 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play, including a 14-inning game in 1916 in which he pitched every inning, giving up only a run in the first.

To the great dismay of Boston fans, Ruth was sold by the Red Sox to the New York Yankees before the 1920 season by Red Sox owner Harry Frazee, so that Frazee could finance the musical No, No, Nanette. Ruth switched to the outfield with the Yankees, and hit more home runs than the entire Red Sox team in 10 of the next 12 seasons. "The Sultan of Swat" or "The Bambino," as he was alternately known, was the greatest gate attraction in baseball through the 1920s until his retirement as a player in 1935. During his career with the New York Yankees, the team won four World Series and seven American League pennants. After getting rid of Ruth, the Red Sox did not win a World Series until 2004, an 85-year drought known to Red Sox fans as "the Curse of the Bambino."

Ruth died of throat cancer on August 16, 1948. His record for career home runs was not broken until Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run on April 8, 1974, 39 years later.

This Day in History

 May 24, 1883:
Brooklyn Bridge opens



After 14 years and 27 deaths while being constructed, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is opened, connecting the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date.

John Roebling, born in Germany in 1806, was a great pioneer in the design of steel suspension bridges. He studied industrial engineering in Berlin and at the age of 25 immigrated to western Pennsylvania, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to make his living as a farmer. He later moved to the state capital in Harrisburg, where he found work as a civil engineer. He promoted the use of wire cable and established a successful wire-cable factory.

Meanwhile, he earned a reputation as a designer of suspension bridges, which at the time were widely used but known to fail under strong winds or heavy loads. Roebling is credited with a major breakthrough in suspension-bridge technology: a web truss added to either side of the bridge roadway that greatly stabilized the structure. Using this model, Roebling successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, and the Ohio River at Cincinnati, Ohio. On the basis of these achievements, New York State accepted Roebling's design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan--with a span of 1,595 feet--and appointed him chief engineer. It was to be the world's first steel suspension bridge.

Just before construction began in 1869, Roebling was fatally injured while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of tetanus. He was the first of more than two dozen people who would die building his bridge. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer. Roebling had worked with his father on several bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge.

The two granite foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge were built in timber caissons, or watertight chambers, sunk to depths of 44 feet on the Brooklyn side and 78 feet on the New York side. Compressed air pressurized the caissons, allowing underwater construction. At that time, little was known of the risks of working under such conditions, and more than a hundred workers suffered from cases of compression sickness. Compression sickness, or the "bends," is caused by the appearance of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream that result from rapid decompression. Several died, and Washington Roebling himself became bedridden from the condition in 1872. Other workers died as a result of more conventional construction accidents, such as collapses and a fire.

Roebling continued to direct construction operations from his home, and his wife, Emily, carried his instructions to the workers. In 1877, Washington and Emily moved into a home with a view of the bridge. Roebling's health gradually improved, but he remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. On May 24, 1883, Emily Roebling was given the first ride over the completed bridge, with a rooster, a symbol of victory, in her lap. Within 24 hours, an estimated 250,000 people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, using a broad promenade above the roadway that John Roebling designed solely for the enjoyment of pedestrians.

The Brooklyn Bridge, with its unprecedented length and two stately towers, was dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world." The connection it provided between the massive population centers of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed the course of New York City forever. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn formally merged with New York City, Staten Island, and a few farm towns, forming Greater New York.