US President Lyndon B. Johnson meets a crowd on the 30th of June, 1966.
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Monthly Archives: June 2016
On this day: the Meeker Avenue Bridge
This image of the Meeker Avenue Bridge in New York City under construction was taken on the 29th of June, 1939. Today the bridge is known as the Kosciuszko Bridge.
On this day: the world’s first cruise ship
The Prinzessin Victoria Luise, recognised as the world’s first cruise ship, was launched on the 29th of June, 1900.
Her maiden voyage came on the 5th of January the following year, travelling from Hamburg to New York.
Only five years later her career came to an end when the ship became lodged on rocks in Jamaica. The captain shot himself in his cabin, and the passengers were not rescued until the following morning.
The ship was declared a total loss soon after.
On this day: the sinking of the SS Norge
SS Norge in the late nineteenth century. X
On the 28th of June, 1904 Danish passenger liner SS Norge ran aground near Rockall in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank.
Over 635 people died, with the highest number of victims coming from Norway.
The liner sank twelve minutes after the accident, pulling many who had tried to jump to safety underwater with it, and drowning them.
Herman Wildenvey
Those who survived were saved by British and German ships. One of the survivors was Norwegian poet Herman Wildenvey.
On this day: the Tiflis bank robbery
Russian police file on Joseph Stalin
On the 26th of June, 1907, armed Bolsheviks stole a bank cash shipment in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia). Using bombs and guns, the attackers surrounded military and police in Yerevan (now Freedom) Square.
Amongst those involved in organising the robbery were future Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Lenin.
Forty people were killed and fifty others were injured in the attack.
Yerevan Square in the 19th century. X
The equivalent of millions of dollars were stolen, but in the end much of the money could not be used to fund Bolshevik activities, as the banknotes’ serial numbers were known to authorities.
On this day: the Igandu train disaster
On the 24th of June, 2002 one of the deadliest train accidents in African history occurred near Igandu, Tanzania.
A passenger train rolled backwards and down a hill, where it hit a goods train. 281 people died.
On this day: the last shot of the US Civil War
America’s Civil War ended on the 9th of May, 1865. However, the final shot fired was on the 22nd of June that year.
The shot was fired from the Confederate-operated CSS Shenandoah. The event took place near the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean.
The Shenandoah was photographed here in Williamstown in Melbourne, Australia in 1865.
