April 10

Perhaps the most sophisticated submarine of its day was crushed 45 years ago today off the coast of Cape Cod. The USS Thresher, a 3700-ton Permit class nuclear submarine, was designed to navigate deeper and move faster than any previous submarine. Its purpose was to hunt down and destroy missile-firing subs developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

After an overhaul during the winter, the Thresher sailed to New England to conduct deep-water tests. On the morning of 10 April 1963 a design flaw -- most likely located along the steel bonded fittings in the sub’s piping system -- caused 100,000 pounds of water to spray into the sub, tilting its nose upward and shutting down the vessel’s reactor. Without power, the Thresher sank toward the ocean bottom. When it reached its “crush depth,” the submarine imploded, taking the lives of 129 sailors and civilians, whose last moments must have been unendurably frantic as they struggled to regain control of the doomed vessel. Radio operators on the USS Skylark -- a naval rescue ship assigned to shadow the Thresher on its maneuvers that day -- actually heard the submarine’s last moments, which somewhat mercifully consisted merely of the sound of metal being crushed.

The loss of the Thresher proved to be the worst peacetime naval disaster in US history. The vessel still rests in six parts along the ocean floor.

The Thresher was obliterated exactly 43 years after the Titanic left port in Southampton, England, on its way to New York.

February 28

The only American cabinet officials ever to be die in a steamship explosion did so on this date in 1844, when a 27,000 pound wrought iron gun named the “Peacemaker” shattered aboard the USS Princeton, killing Secretary of State Abel Upshur and five other people.

The explosion took place during a demonstration for President John Tyler, who was aboard the ship with 400 administration officials and other compatriots. Late in the afternoon, after the massive gun had been fired several times, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer requested that the guests be treated to one last demonstration of the gun's awesome power. Gilmer died in the subsequent blast, which was caused by an undetected and catastrophic manufacturing defect that caused the lower barrel of the gun to shatter. Gilmer was killed when a piece of shrapnel struck him in the head; a slave of President Tyler’s named Armistead (after Tyler’s mother) was also dispatched by a piece of flying iron. Abel Upshur lost his arms and legs and was disemboweled by the blast, while the severed arm of Virgil Maxcy, an American diplomat serving in Belgium, struck a bystander, covering her in blood. (In Nathaniel Currie’s lithograph of the unfortunate event, Maxcy’s arm can be seen flying through the air.) As the dead and wounded law scattered across the boat, President Tyler comforted a distraught young woman named Julia Gardiner whose father, Colonel David Gardiner, was de-limbed along with Upshur. Gardiner and Tyler married four months later.

When the Princeton returned to Washington, five of the six men killed in the explosion were laid in state in the East Room of the White House. Armistead’s body was delivered instead to his family. When John Tyler died eighteen years later, he did so as a member of the Confederate House of Representatives.

Thirty-three years after the “Peacemaker” exploded, the United States senate ratified the so-called “Manypenny agreement” between the United States and the Oglala Sioux, the Arapaho and Cheyenne; it was so named for George W. Manypenny, an American commissioner who had previously negotiated several treaties between the US and American Indians. Although the 1868 treaty of Ft. Laramie had set aside an enormous area of the northern Plains known at the time as the “Great Sioux Reservation.” Amendments to the 1868 treaty could only take place with the approval of three-quarters of the people.

Throughout the 1870s the United States abrogated the St. Laramie agreement, first by allowing railroad companies to cut through the reservation and then -- in 1875 -- by opening up Indian lands to miners. Following a short and brutal war that included the Battle of Little Big Horn, the US imposed its will on the Sioux by withholding rations and forcing their chiefs to the negotiating table. According to the terms of the one-sided Manypenny arrangement -- which most certainly did not have the support of three quarters of the population -- the Sioux were to surrender claims to the Black Hills region, which stretched across five states and covered 47 million acres of land stuffed with gold and other resources that would enrich American industrialists and financiers while impoverish the indigenous people who lived there.

Three years after the agreement that bore his name was ratified, George Manypenny wrote a book entitled Our Indian Wards. There he wrote that

It can not be denied, that from the period when the first infant settlements were made upon the Atlantic sea-board by European colonies, until the present time, there have been constant, persistent, and unceasing efforts on the part of the white man to drive the Indian from his hunting ground and his home.

In 1979, the Indian Court of Claims, established by the US in 1944 to review and rectify historic treaty violations, judged the Manypenny agreement to be one part of the “constant, persistent, and unceasing drive” to dispossess Indian people of their land; the court ordered financial restitution of more than $100 million for the Black Hills. In 1980, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed that the "sale" of the Black Hills had not been conducted legally. It refused, however, to return the land to the Lakota people and ordered them to accept belated financial compensation instead.

The Lakota refused, and the $100 million continues to lie in escrow, accruing interest to this day.

December 6

At about 8:45 a.m. on 6 December 1917, two ships collided just off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the time, the harbor provided the livelihood for two thriving communities, each bursting with commercial and naval activity that only accelerated as a result of World War I. The population of Halifax had swelled to more than 50,000, with a smaller community of roughly 10,000 living in neighboring Dartmouth, a short ferry ride across the harbor. The economic bustle of Halifax generated no small degree of confusion, however, as civilian vessels jostled for right-of-way with ships from the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy; collisions were not infrequent.

When the French cargo ship Mont-Blanc and the Belgian relief vessel Imo struck each other on the morning of December 6, a spectacular fire erupted on the Mont-Blanc, whose starboard hull was punctured by the prow of its accidental adversary. Witnesses described an enormous plume of black smoke that coughed from the French ship, rising up into the morning sky, punctuated with short explosive bursts that resembled a fireworks display. The French crew, gibbering incoherently, abandoned the Mont-Blanc as it cruised slowly toward Pier 6. After attempting to no avail to extinguish the fire, a tugboat and several smaller craft from nearby British and Canadian naval vessels tried to nudge the Mont-Blanc back into the harbor. These efforts failed as well. More than a dozen fire trucks and wagons arrived at the pier to contend with the blaze. The people of Halifax were drawn to the spectacle as well. Hundreds gathered along the docks; hundreds more watched from the windows and porches of their waterside homes in the Richmond neighborhood. For nearly 20 minutes, Halifax buzzed with excitement.

No one -- aside from the French crew desperately rowing their way toward Dartmouth -- knew that the Mont-Blanc was stuffed like a Christmas turkey, loaded down with 226,000 kilograms of TNT; more than two million kilograms of picric acid; 56,000 kilograms of guncotton; and 223,000 kilograms of benzol. On its way to meet up with a trans-Atlantic convoy bound for war-stricken Europe, the captain of the Mont-Blanc was understandably reluctant to fly the usual warning flags, lest German U-Boats seize the opportunity to attack such an appealing target. At that moment, the Mont-Blanc was not only a ship in great distress, but it was also the largest bomb in human history.

When it exploded at 9:04 a.m., the Mont-Blanc took the entire neighborhood of Richmond with it. The force of the blast propelled part of the anchor 4 kilometers; a section of a gun barrel was found 5 kilometers away at Dartmouth. Within a radius of two kilometers, homes, churches and businesses were destroyed by the thousands, instantly reduced to splinters and ash. More than 1500 people were immolated within seconds, including a Mi'kmak village that was completely annihilated. Over the next few days, hundreds more would perish from their injuries, which were too numerous for local institutions to manage. Thousands of survivors suffered horrific cuts from glass windows that shattered as they watched the Mont-Blanc smolder. For nearly 40 people who survived, the explosion of the Mont-Blanc was the last thing they ever saw. In subsequent years, Halifax would earn an outstanding reputation for its services to the blind.

The explosion -- which still ranks among the largest non-nuclear, man-made explosions ever -- triggered an 18-foot tsunami, which was followed by a series of fires caused by overturned stoves and leaking fuel oil. That night, a blizzard struck the town, killing dozens of people trapped alive inside the rubble of Halifax.

July 24

On this date in 1915, the S.S. Eastland capsized in the Chicago River with 2500 passengers, a third of whom drowned in a mere 20 feet of water. Most of the dead were employees and family members of employees who worked for the Western Electric Company, which was sponsoring a Saturday picnic on Michigan Island, Indiana. The 845 lives lost that morning represent the greatest American disaster of the 20th century.

A tour vessel owned by the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship company, the Eastland had displayed chronic listing problems since being commissioned 13 years before. Ironically, safety legislation passed after the Titanic disaster worsened the ship’s stability problems by requiring that all vessels -- including Great Lakes steamships -- be fitted with a full complement of lifeboats. When the picnic-goers boarded on July 24, 1915, many of them gathered on the starboard side to bid farewell; hundreds of others, taking shelter from the day’s wind and drizzle, descended below deck. As the ship lurched suddenly onto its side, everyone below the deck was trapped. Although a few managed to escape, most did not.

Harlan Babcock, who worked for the Chicago Herald and witnessed the event, described it years later as one of the worst moments of his life.

Never to my dying day shall I forget the supreme horror of that moment. Men, women and children, who a moment before had been laughing and shouting messages to one another on board the Eastland and to friends on shore, were hurled by the hundreds into the Chicago River.

As the vessel top-heavily careened on its side, screams and wails, sobs and pitiful prayers came from those on the upper deck. They were hurled off like so many ants being brushed from a table.

The boat went over so quickly that scores who were sitting in chairs on deck did not have time to rise but were shot into the river. In an instant, the surface of the river was black with struggling, crying, frightened, drowning humanity. Infants floated about like corks.

Cries of 'Help' from those in the water filled the air. Many sank instantly. Others turned white, lifting imploring faces toward the panic-stricken crowd on the nearby Clark Street Bridge and piers. But before help could reach them, they too sank.

I was chilled by the harvest of death.

Among those harvested that morning were Edward Bartlett, a 55-year-old bartender; Louise Schmidt and Frank Selig, both 19 years old and engaged to be married; the entire family of George and Adelle Sindelar, including their five children; Henry Thyer and his 9-year-old daughter Emily; and James William Holdsworth, a 68-year-old machinist who became the Eastland’s oldest victim. Mary Braitsch, one of the more than 1600 survivors, lost her entire family -- husband John, an electrical toolmaker, her son Frederick (9) and daughters Anna (17), Gertrude (11), Hattie (7) and Marie (5 months).

Over the years, stories accumulated about the lucky ones who for one reason or another were not on board when disaster struck. Sam Dewbray and his wife were among the many passengers who never boarded the Eastland. They were planting lilac bushes and arrived late. Herman and Elsie Francke, a young married couple, disembarked shortly before the ship capsized. Elsie, who was feeling severe nausea, turned out to be pregnant. Edward Peternell, who worked for the Western Electrical Company, bailed out on the picnic at the last minute to meet his girlfriend, a young woman named Susan Jordan. His brother Joseph, who did not have a date, boarded the Eastland and perished.

April 10

Perhaps the most sophisticated submarine of its day was crushed 44 years ago today off the coast of Cape Cod. The USS Thresher, a 3700-ton Permit class nuclear submarine, was desiged to navigate deeper and move faster than any previous submarine, for the purpose of hunting down and destryong missile-firing subs developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. After an overhaul during the winter, the Thresher sailed to New England to conduct deep-water tests. On the morning of 10 April 1963. a design flaw -- most likely located along the steel bonded fittings in the sub’s piping system -- caused 100,000 pounds of water to spray into the sub, tilting its nose upward and shutting down the vessel’s reactor. Without power, the Thresher sank toward the ocean bottom. When it reached its “crush depth,” the submarine imploded, taking the lives of 129 sailors and civilians, whose last moments must have been unendurably frantic as they struggled to regain control of the doomed vessel. Radio operators on the USS Skylark -- a naval rescue ship assigned to shadow the Thresher on its maneuvers that day -- actually heard the submarine’s last moments, which somewhat mercifully consisted merely of the sounds of metal being crushed.

The loss of the Thresher proved to be the worst peacetime naval disaster in US history. The vessel still rests in six parts along the ocean floor.