On April 28, 1988, a seemingly routine, 35-minute flight from
Hilo to Honolulu turned into terror when an 18-foot-long
section of the upper fuselage suddenly tears off Aloha
Airlines Flight 243.

The explosive decompression and roof loss sweep flight
attendant Clarabelle “C.B.” Lansing off the Boeing 737,
sending freezing winds of hurricane force through the
cabin, leaving passengers in the first five rows of the
plane completely exposed to the sky.

Miraculously, Captain Robert Schornstheimer landed the
plane in Maui with no further deaths.

The bizarre incident happened about 20 minutes into the
flight from Hilo International Airport to Honolulu, at 24,000
feet with 95 passengers and crew members on board.

Captain Robert Schornstheimer       
      
      
         
       

The steamboat Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near
Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged
Union soldiers. The accident is still considered the largest
maritime disaster in U.S. history in terms of lives lost.

The Sultana was launched from Cincinnati in 1863. The boat
was 260 feet long and had an authorized capacity of 376
passengers and crew.

        
On April 25, 1865, the Sultana left New Orleans with 100
passengers. It stopped at Vicksburg, Mississippi, for repair
of a leaky boiler.

R. G. Taylor, the boilermaker on the ship, advised Captain J.
Cass Mason that two sheets on the boiler had to be replaced,
but Mason ordered Taylor to simply patch the plates until the
ship reached St. Louis.

   
    
    
   

The only known photograph of the Sultana taken on the last
day of its fateful voyage in Helena, Arkansas on April 27,
1865.

Model of Sultana by artist & Lincoln Shrine docent Ken Jolly.

On April 26, 1954, the Salk polio vaccine field trials, involving
1.8 million children, began at the Franklin Sherman Elementary
School in McLean, Virginia.

Children in the United States, Canada and Finland participated
in the trials, which used for the first time the now-standard
double-blind method, whereby neither the patient nor attending
doctor knew if the inoculation was the vaccine or a placebo.

One year later, on April 12, 1955, researchers announced the
vaccine was safe and effective and it quickly became a standard
part of childhood immunizations in America.

Jonas Salk holding bottles of culture he        
used to develop the polio vaccine.

Today, polio has been eliminated throughout
much of the world due to the vaccine; but,
there is still no cure for the disease and it
persists in a small number of countries in
Africa and Asia.

On April 25, 1945, President Harry S. Truman learned the
full details of the Manhattan Project, in which scientists 
were attempting to create the first atomic bomb.

   
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972)

On April 25, 1950, the Boston Celtics made Chuck
Cooper an All-American forward from Duquesne
University, the first African American picked in
the NBA draft.      

     
With the selection, the first pick in the second round,
Cooper breaks the NBA’s color barrier and changes
the league for the better. Cooper died of cancer on 
February 5, 1984,

Cooper was inducted into the Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of Fame on September 9, 2019.

Charles Henry Cooper (September 29, 1926 – February 5, 1984)