Scott Allsop's Blog, page 44

28th March 1979: Worst accident in U.S. nuclear power plant history at Three Mile Island Generating Station

The incident at Three Mile Island heralded a dramatic shift in public attitudes towards nuclear power and the second reactor never returned to ...

27th March 1964: Most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America struck Alaska

The colossal earthquake, registering a magnitude of 9.2, struck Southcentral Alaska and is the most powerful on record in North America and the second-largest ...

26th March 1351: Combat of the Thirty fought between English and Breton soldiers during the Breton War of Succession

Although the event was of little military importance overall, the chivalric nature of the battle was celebrated by chroniclers, balladeers, and artists, while survivors of the Thirty were held in held ...

25th March 1965: The Selma to Montgomery March ends at the Alabama State Capitol

The marchers arrived in Montgomery on 25 March, where King made his ‘How Long, Not Long’ speech to a crowd of more than 25,000 ...

23rd March 1857: The world’s first successful passenger elevator installed in a five-storey New York City department store

Elisha Otis was an American mechanic who invented the safety elevator, which featured a mechanism to prevent the platform from falling if the hoisting cable ...

22nd March 1622: Indian Massacre of 1622 occurred in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia

The surprise attack was launched against English settlers by the the Powhatan Confederacy, led by Chief ...

21st March 1952: Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, takes place in Cleveland, Ohio

By the time the concert began at 10pm on 21 March there were thousands of people outside the arena unable to get in who resorted to breaking through the ...

20th March 1854: U.S. Republican Party founded at a meeting in a schoolhouse in Wisconsin

The party quickly built support and by 1856 it proved to be the dominant political force in the North when John C. Fremont, the first Republican presidential candidate, won 11 of the 16 Northern ...

19th March 1831: City Bank of New York robbed in the first widely-reported bank heist in U.S. history

The heist was masterminded by James Honeyman and James Murray entered the bank late at night on 19 March where they raided the vault and safe deposit boxes. Together they left with approximately $245,000 in bank notes and coins, which is the equivalent of more than $50 million ...

18th March 1990: 13 works of art stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the world’s largest ever art theft

Despite a reward of $10 million, and extensive investigations by the FBI, none of the works have ever been recovered and nobody has ever been arrested for the ...