World History

Thursday, May 6, 1937. :   The airship Hindenburg catches fire as it attempts to dock in New Jersey, USA, killing 36.

The rigid airship, also known as a zeppelin or dirigible, is a self-propelled, steered aircraft with lighter-than-air gas to provide lift, and a gondola to accommodate passengers, crew, and cargo. In the early days of airships, the primary lifting gas was hydrogen; however, hydrogen is flammable when mixed with air. After the 1950s, helium was used in all countries except the United States because it was safer. The USA continued to use hydrogen because it was cheaper and more readily available, and provided greater lift – this was despite the Hindenburg tragedy.

The Hindenburg was a brand-new, all-duralumin design and, together with its sister ship the LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II, was one of the largest aircraft ever built, at 245.06 m long and 41.15 m in diameter. It was longer than three Boeing 747s placed end-to-end. The Hindenburg was originally intended to be filled with helium, but a United States military embargo on helium forced the Germans to modify the design of the ship to use highly flammable hydrogen as the lift gas. The Germans had considerable experience with using hydrogen and implemented necessary safety measures to pre-empt an accident. Their safety record was impressive.

However, on 6 May 1937, the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg was approaching a mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey when it caught fire. The flames first appeared near the tail and, within 37 seconds, completely engulfed the ship. Of the 97 people on board, 35 were killed, as well as one of the ground crew. Various theories have been put forward regarding the cause of the blaze. Sabotage has been virtually ruled out. More likely theories suggest that the fire was started by a spark caused by static buildup, or that one of the many high-tension bracing wires within the structure of the airship may have snapped and punctured the fabric of one or more of the internal gas cells.

World History

Thursday, May 6, 1954. :   British athlete Roger Bannister breaks the four-minute mile.

The four minute mile, in athletics, is the running of a mile (1609 metres) in under four minutes. It was once thought to be impossible but has now been achieved by many male athletes, although the four-minute mile has not yet been broken by any female athletes.

On 6 May 1954 Roger Bannister, a 25-year-old British medical student, became the first to break the four minute mile in recorded history, at 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, at the Iffley Road track in Oxford. Six weeks later, John Landy, an Australian, followed suit with 3:58, breaking Bannister’s record. To date, the mile record is held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, who set a time of 3 minutes 43.13 seconds in Rome in 1999.

World History

Friday, May 6, 1994. :   The Channel Tunnel is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand.

The Channel tunnel is a rail tunnel, 50 kilometres in length, of which 39 km lie beneath the English Channel at the Straits of Dover, connecting Cheriton in Kent, England and Coquelles near Calais in northern France. A journey through the tunnel lasts about 20 minutes. The concept of such a tunnel linking Britain and France had been under discussion for centuries, but it was only seriously realised in 1957 when le Tunnel sous la Manche Study Group was formed. Following the group’s report in 1960, the project to construct the Tunnel was launched in 1973, but financial problems in 1975 halted progress beyond a 250m test tunnel.

In 1984, a joint United Kingdom and French government request for proposals to build a privately funded link brought forth four submissions, one of which closely resembled the 1973 route. The Fixed Link Treaty was signed by the British and French governments on 12 February 1986, and ratified in 1987. It took 15,000 workers over seven years to dig the tunnel, with tunnelling operations carried out simultaneously from both ends. On 1 December 1990, workers bored through the final wall of rock to join the two halves of the Channel Tunnel.

The Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel as it is sometimes known, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand on 6 May 1994, in a ceremony held in Calais. The American Society of Civil Engineers has declared the tunnel to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.