This Day in History

The Great Halifax Explosion

On this day in 1917, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with the Norwegian vessel Imo.
As World War I raged in Europe, the port city of Halifax bustled with ships carrying troops, relief supplies, and munitions across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Mont Blanc’s cargo hold was packed with highly explosive munitions – 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high-octane gasoline, and 10 tons of gun cotton as it was forging through the harbor’s narrows to join a military convoy that would escort it across the Atlantic.
At approximately 8:45 a.m., the two ships collided, setting the picric acid ablaze. The Mont Blanc was propelled toward the shore by its collision with the Imo, and the crew rapidly abandoned the ship, attempting without success to alert the harbor of the peril of the burning ship. Spectators gathered along the waterfront to witness the spectacle of the blazing ship, and minutes later it brushed by a harbor pier, setting it ablaze. The Halifax Fire Department responded quickly and was positioning its engine next to the nearest hydrant when the Mont Blanc exploded.
The massive explosion killed more than 1,800 people, injured another 9,000 – blinding 200 – and destroyed almost the entire north end of the city of Halifax, including more than 1,600 homes. The resulting shock wave shattered windows 50 miles away, and the sound could be heard hundreds of miles away.

The Monongah mine disaster

In 1907, also on December 6, an explosion in a network of mines in Monongah West Virginia’s Marion County, kills 361 coal miners. It was the worst mining disaster in American history.
In 1883, the creation of the Norfolk and Western Railway opened a gateway to the untapped coalfields of southwestern West Virginia. New towns sprung up in the region virtually overnight as European immigrants and African Americans from the south poured into southern West Virginia in pursuit of a livelihood from the new industry.
By the late 19th century, West Virginia, now a national leader in the production of coal, fell far behind other major coal-producing states in regulating mining conditions. In addition to poor economic conditions, West Virginia had a higher mine death rate than any other state. Nationwide, a total of 3,242 Americans were killed in mine accidents in 1907.