1937 The Hindenburg Disaster

The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, burst into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing thirty-six passengers and crew. 

The rigid airship, often known by the last name of its inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was first developed by the Germans in the early twentieth century. The heavy steel-framed Zeppelins were far larger than the airships developed by the French decades before, but size was exchanged for safety as Zeppelins were vulnerable to explosion because they had to be lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas, instead of non-flammable helium gas. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. 

In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin also pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship. On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for its first of ten scheduled journey's across the Atlantic to Lakehurst's Navy Air Base. On its maiden voyage, the Hindenburg, stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, carried thirty-six passengers and crew of sixty-one. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling two hundred feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, twenty-one crewmen, and one civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries. 

Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared "Oh, the humanity!" The recording of Morrison's commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America's first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster and no existing rigid airship survived World War II.

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1626 - Manhattan Island bought for $24 in cloth and buttons