Nine killed in a stampede outside a hip-hop celebrity basketball game


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Year
1991
Month Day
December 28

 ”It doesn’t take an Einstein to know that young people attending a rap concert…who have paid as much as $20 a ticket, would not be very happy and easy to control if they were unable to gain admission to the event because it was oversold.” Those were the words of Judge Louis C. Benza of the New York State Court of Claims in sorting out the question of civil liability for one of the worst music-related tragedies in recent American history. Judge Benza’s 73-page decision, issued seven years after nine young people died in a crowd stampede on December 28, 1991, placed 50 percent of the blame for those deaths on the venue’s owner, the City University of New York, and 50 percent on the event’s promoters, rapper Dwight “Heavy D” Myers and the then largely unknown hip-hop impresario Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs.

Shortly after 6:00 p.m., according to eyewitness accounts, the crowd outside broke at least one of the glass doors separating them from the building lobby. Despite the presence of at least 66 New York City Police officers, 38 City College campus-security officers and 20 private security guards hired by the event’s promoters, the crowd was able to surge through those doors and rush into the building shortly after 7:00 p.m., when the event finally got underway. Once inside the lobby, the crowd rushed down a short set of stairs leading to the gymnasium. At the bottom of those stairs, however, were four swinging doors—three of them closed—that opened not into the gymnasium, but into the stairwell. While the 3,000-strong crowd surged forward obliviously, those people who reached the stairwell first were caught in a crush that would leave eight dead on the scene and 29 others injured, one of whom would later die of her injuries at St. Luke’s Hospital.

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John Denver dies in an aircraft accident

Year
1997
Month Day
October 12

To those who bought records like “Rocky Mountain High” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by the millions in the 1970s, John Denver was much more than just a great songwriter and performer. With his oversized glasses, bowl haircut and down vest, he was an unlikely fashion icon, and with his vocal environmentalism, he was the living embodiment of an outdoorsy lifestyle that many 20-something baby boomers would adopt as their own during the “Me” decade. There never was and there probably never will be a star quite like John Denver, who died on October 12, 1997 when his experimental amateur aircraft crashed into Monterey Bay on the California coast.

Born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., in 1943, not in the mountains of Colorado but in Roswell, New Mexico, John Denver rose to fame as a recording artist in 1971, when “Take Me Home, Country Roads” rose all the way to #2 on the Billboard pop chart. In fact, Denver already had a share in a #1 hit as the writer of “Leaving On A Jet Plane,” a chart-topper for Peter, Paul and Mary in 1969. But it was his 1971 breakout as a performer of his own material that made him a household name. Over the course of the 1970s, John Denver earned five more top-10 singles, including the #1 hits “Sunshine On My Shoulders” (1974), “Annie’s Song” (1974), “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” (1975) and “I’m Sorry” (1975). Even more impressive, he released an astonishing 11 albums that were certified Platinum by the RIAA, making him one of the most successful recording artists of the 70s, and launching him into a successful career in film and television as well.

By the 1990s, Denver was still a popular touring musician, though he was no longer recording new material with significant commercial success. Over the course of his career, he had become an accomplished private pilot with more than 2,700 hours on various single- and multi-engine aircraft, with both an instrument and a Lear Jet rating. On October 12, 1997, however, he was flying an aircraft with which he was relatively unfamiliar, and with which he had previously experienced control problems, according to a later investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. At approximately 5:30 pm local time, after a smooth takeoff from a Pacific Grove airfield and under ideal flying conditions, Denver apparently lost control of his Long-EZ aircraft several hundred feet over Monterey Bay, leading to the fatal crash.

A movie star and political activist as well as a musician, John Denver was one of the biggest stars of his generation, and is credited by the Recording Industry Association of America with selling more than 32 million albums in the United States alone.

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Actor and two children killed on “Twilight Zone” set

Year
1982
Month Day
July 23

On July 23, 1982, Vic Morrow and two child actors, Renee Shinn Chen and Myca Dinh Le, are killed in an accident involving a helicopter during filming on the California set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Morrow, age 53, and the children, ages six and seven, were shooting a Vietnam War battle scene in which they were supposed to be running from a pursuing helicopter. Special-effects explosions on the set caused the pilot of the low-flying craft to lose control and crash into the three victims. The accident took place on the film’s last scheduled day of shooting.

Twilight Zone co-director John Landis (Blues Brothers, Trading Places, National Lampoon’s Animal House) and four other men working on the film, including the special-effects coordinator and the helicopter pilot, were charged with involuntary manslaughter. According to a 1987 New York Times report, it was the first time a film director faced criminal charges for events that occurred while making a movie. During the subsequent trial, the defense maintained the crash was an accident that could not have been predicted while the prosecution claimed Landis and his crew had been reckless and violated laws regarding child actors, including regulations about their working conditions and hours. Following the emotional 10-month trial, a jury acquitted all five defendants in 1987. The familes of the three victims filed lawsuits against Landis, Warner Brothers and Twilight Zone co-director and producer Steven Spielberg that were settled for undisclosed amounts.

Twilight Zone: The Movie was released in the summer of 1983. The film, which received mixed reviews, was based on a popular science fiction TV series of the same name that aired from 1959 to 1964 and was created by Rod Serling. In the movie, four directors– Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller–each adapted a different episode of the TV series, which chronicled the stories of people who found themselves in highly unusual situations.

Vic Morrow had previously appeared in numerous TV shows and such films as The Blackboard Jungle (1955) and The Bad News Bears (1976). He was the father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Margot at the Wedding, The Hateful Eight).

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Yangtze River peaks in China

Year
1931
Month Day
August 18

On August 18, 1931, the Yangtze River in China peaks during a horrible flood that kills 3.7 million people directly and indirectly over the next several months. This was perhaps the worst natural disaster of the 20th century.

The Yangtze River runs through southern China, one of the most populated areas on Earth. The region’s people, most of whom lived at subsistence level, depended on the river for water for their personal and farming needs. In April, the river-basin area received far-above-average rainfall. When torrential rains came again in July, the stage was set for disaster. The Yangtze flooded over a 500-square-mile area. The rising waters drove 500,000 people from their homes by the beginning of August.

As the waters continued to rise in the first half of August and even more rain fell, the rice fields that dominated the landscape were swamped, destroying the crop. Major cities such as Wuhan and Nanjing depended on this rice and, without it, people in the cities starved to death. In addition, typhoid and dysentery were rampant due to the polluted river. The millions who died from this flood perished from starvation and disease, many after the flood waters had receded.

Much of the disaster may have been averted if flood-control measures had been followed closely. The Yangtze carries large amounts of sediment, which accumulates in certain areas of the river and must be cleared regularly. However, with much of the area’s resources devoted to civil war at the time, the river was neglected.

READ MORE: China: A Timeline

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Two trains crash in Japan, killing more than 40

Year
1991
Month Day
May 14

On May 14, 1991, two diesel trains carrying commuters crash head-on, killing more than 40 people and injuring 400 near Shigaraki, Japan. This was the worst rail disaster in Japan since a November 1963 Yokohama crash killed 160 people.

Shigaraki, a town near Kyoto, is famous for its ceramics. On May 14, the World Ceramics Festival was being held in the town. Passengers filled a train in Kibukawa, which was to run along a 14.7-kilometer single-track rail line away from Shigaraki, at just after 10 in the morning. However, workers on the Shigaraki Kogen Railways (SKR) line could not get a green signal in order for the train to depart the station. The system showed that a train was approaching, but the workers, believing this to be incorrect, overrode the system and sent the train out, 11 minutes late.

Unfortunately, the system had been correct: there was another train on the line, a JR West commuter train carrying passengers toward Shigaraki for the festival. When a faulty-departure detector failed to work correctly, this other train was sent straight on a collision course with the SKR train.

The resulting crash derailed both trains and cost 42 people their lives. A subsequent investigation faulted the SKR workers for allowing the train to depart without a green signal, an action found to be dangerous and illegal. A signal engineer was also blamed for the defective wiring that led to the failure of the faulty-departure detector that should have prevented the collision. A 1999 civil trial resulted in a 500 million yen award to the victims against SKR and JR West jointly.

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Two airplanes collide over New York City


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Year
1960
Month Day
December 16

On December 16, 1960, two airplanes collide over New York City, killing 134 people on the planes and on the ground. The improbable mid-air collision is the only such accident to have occurred over a major city in U.S. history.

It was a snowy morning in New York when a United DC-8 from Chicago was heading for Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in southern Queens. At the same time, a TWA Super Constellation from Dayton, Ohio, was heading to LaGuardia Airport in northern Queens. Due to the weather, the United flight was put into a holding pattern. When the pilot miscalculated the location of the pattern, the plane came directly into the path of the TWA flight.

One hundred twenty-eight people in total were on the two planes. Eleven-year-old passenger Stephen Baltz described the scene: “It looked like a picture out of a fairy book. Then all of a sudden there was an explosion. The plane started to fall and people started to scream. I held on to my seat and then the plane crashed.” Baltz initially survived the crash, but died from his injuries the following afternoon. All of the other people on the planes also died.

The TWA plane fell onto Miller Field, a military airfield on Staten Island. The United flight, missing its right engine and part of a wing, came down in the middle of the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. It narrowly missed St. Augustine’s Academy and hit an apartment building and the Pillar of Fire Church. Dozens of other buildings caught fire in the resulting explosion. Mrs. Robert Nevin, who was sitting in a top floor apartment when the plane crashed into her building, later said “The roof caved in and I saw the sky.”

Six people on the ground died when the plane crashed, including Wallace Lewis, the 90-year-old caretaker of the church, and two men who were selling Christmas trees nearby. Christmas presents carried by the plane’s passengers were strewn all over the streets. Firefighting efforts went on for nearly 72 hours because of the multiple fires.

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Trains collide near Tokyo, killing more than 160 people

Year
1962
Month Day
May 03

Two commuter trains and a freight train collide near Tokyo, Japan, killing more than 160 people and injuring twice that number on May 3, 1962.

It was Constitution Day in Japan when a commuter train pulled out of Mikawashima station at 9:30 p.m. taking passengers out of Tokyo. Three miles north of the city, a freight train went through a red signal, causing it to jump the track and collide with the commuter train. Most of the passengers survived this first collision.

The survivors then scrambled out of the disabled train and down a 30-foot embankment adjacent to the rails. Minutes later, a second commuter train on the same line, with nine cars, came down the tracks unaware of the crash ahead and plowed into the back of the first commuter train. The collision caused the boiler of the steam locomotive on the freight train to explode; the resulting steam scalded those people still stuck on the train.

To make matters worse, the first commuter train was pushed over and down the embankment right on top of the passengers who had escaped from it minutes earlier. More than 400 people were either killed or required hospitalization.

The subsequent investigation into the accident resulted in the indictment of nine of the freight train’s crew members for criminal negligence.

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Train derails in Alabama swamp

Year
1993
Month Day
September 22

An Amtrak train headed to Miami derails near Mobile, Alabama, killing 47 people on September 22, 1993. The accident, the deadliest in Amtrak’s history, was caused by a negligent towboat operator and foggy conditions.

The Sunset Limited train travels from Los Angeles through Texas to New Orleans before arriving in Miami, Florida. It is known for carrying older people who prefer not to make the trip by air or car. In the very early morning hours of September 22, the train was traveling through Alabama. Three locomotives pulling eight cars left Mobile at 1:30 a.m. heading toward Birmingham across a swampy area.

Meanwhile, the Mauvilla, a towboat operated by the Warrior and Gulf Navigation Company, was pulling six barges of coal and wood through the Alabama marshes. Andrew Stabler, the captain, was sleeping as the towboat and barges made their way up the Mobile River. Willie Odeon, another employee of Warrior and Gulf, was driving the boat, but did not know how to use the radar system. The boat had no compass or nautical charts to assist in navigation on the foggy night and, without realizing it, Odeon turned into the Big Bayou Canot, an area where barges are prohibited.

At 2:45 a.m., the Mauvilla struck a rail bridge. The bridge was only seven to 12 feet above the water (depending on the tides) and was in place so that trains could pass through the swamps. When the boat collided with the bridge, it knocked the tracks out of alignment by three feet. Several minutes later, the Sunset Limited came down the tracks at 70 miles per hour, hit the misplaced tracks and derailed. The three locomotives and the first four cars of the train plunged into the water.

The crew of the Mauvilla did not make a rescue call until 3:08 a.m., but did manage to pull seven survivors out of the swamp. Those who did not drown were put in even more danger when a fire broke out. Two of the disaster’s 47 victims died from burns. The Coast Guard did not arrive on the scene until 4:25 a.m., and it was another hour before the first helicopter arrived to assist in the rescue efforts.

The crew of the Mauvilla was severely criticized for their actions but escaped criminal liability.

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Race car at Le Mans crashes into spectators, killing 82

Year
1955
Month Day
June 11

On June 11, 1955, a racing car in Le Mans, France, goes out of control and crashes into stands filled with spectators, killing 82 people. The tragedy in the famous 24-hour race led to a ban on racing in several nations.

The Le Mans race, organized by France’s Automobile Club de L’Ouest, was first held in May 1923 and has since been held nearly every June. The race always begins at 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and lasts for the next 24 hours over a 13-kilometer course running through the country roads near Le Mans. The winner is the racer who covers the greatest distance in that time. Before 1970, each car could only have two drivers. Only a single driver was allowed in the early years of the race. Three are required today.

In 1952, Pierre Levegh, a Frenchman driving alone, might have won the race if not for a single mistake in the last hour. Three years later, Levegh was invited to join the Mercedes-Benz team; their 300SLR was to be outfitted with a new innovation, an air brake that would enhance cornering.

Prior to the race, Levegh complained that the course was too narrow near the pit-stop area and the grandstand. This observation proved prescient. As Levegh was racing for the lead near the pit-stop area, he swerved to avoid fellow racer Mike Hawthorn’s Jaguar as it moved toward the pits. Levegh’s car, going about 150 miles per hour, came up too fast on Lance Macklin’s Austin-Healey and was catapulted upward. The car crashed into the grandstand and its exploding parts went straight into the crowd. Levegh and more than 80 spectators, packed into the grandstand, lost their lives in the fiery crash.

The race continued despite the horrific accident (Hawthorn won), purportedly because if the remaining spectators had left the area, they would have blocked the ambulances called to pick up the dead and injured. The rest of the Mercedes team was recalled.

Grand Prix races in Germany and Switzerland scheduled for later that year were cancelled. Both Spain and Mexico temporarily banned motor racing following the 1955 Le Mans tragedy.

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Thousands die in massive flood at European shores of North Sea

Year
1421
Month Day
November 17

On November 17, 1421, a storm in the North Sea batters the European coastline. Over the next several days, approximately 10,000 people in what is now the Netherlands died in the resulting floods.

The lowlands of the Netherlands near the North Sea were densely populated at the time, despite their known vulnerability to flooding. Small villages and a couple of cities had sprung up in what was known as the Grote Waard region. The residents built dikes throughout the area to keep the water at bay, but fatal floods still struck in 1287, 1338, 1374, 1394 and 1396. After each, residents fixed the dikes and moved right back in after the floods.

Even the St. Elisabeth’s flood of November 1404 (named after the November 19 feast day for St. Elisabeth of Hungary), in which hundreds died, could not dissuade the residents from living in the region. Seventeen years later, at the same time of year, another strong storm struck the North Sea. The resulting storm surge caused waves to burst hundreds of dikes all over Grote Waard. The city of Dort was devastated and 20 whole villages were wiped off the map. The flooding was so extensive this time that the dikes were not fully rebuilt until 1500. This meant that much of Zeeland and Holland–the area that now makes up the Netherlands–was flooded for decades following the storm. The town of Dordrecht was permanently separated from the mainland in the flood.

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