The car wreck.

On November 13, 1974, 28-year-old Karen Silkwood was killed in
a car accident near Crescent, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City. Silkwood worked as a technician at a plutonium plant operated
by the Kerr-McGee Corporation, and she had been critical of the
plant’s health and safety procedures. In September, she had
complained to the Atomic Energy Commission about unsafe
conditions at the plant (a week before her death, plant monitors
had found that she was contaminated with radioactivity herself),
and the night she died, she was on her way to a meeting with a
union representative and a reporter for The New York Times,
reportedly with a folder full of documents that proved that Kerr-
McGee was acting negligently when it came to worker safety at
the plant. However, no such folder was found in the wreckage
of her car, lending credence to the theory that someone had
forced her off the road to prevent her from telling what she
knew.

At 5:45 PM on September 30, 1955, 24-year-old actor James
Dean was killed in Cholame, California, when the Porsche
he is driving hits a Ford Tudor sedan at an intersection.

Only one of Dean’s movies, “East of Eden,” had been released
at the time of his death (“Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant”
opened shortly afterward), but he was already on his way to superstardom—and the crash made him a legend.

James Dean loved racing cars, and in fact he and his brand-
new, $7000 Porsche Spyder convertible were on their way
to a race in Salinas, 90 miles south of San Francisco.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer, musician
and songwriter is 78 years old today. His recording
career spans seven decades.        
        
        
        
       

Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator
Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts drove an Oldsmobile
off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped
the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo
Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car
accident for 10 hours.

January 10, 1969

Ralph Dale Earnhardt ( April 29, 1951 – February 18, 2001)

On February 18, 2001, Dale Earnhardt Sr., considered one of
the greatest drivers in National Association for Stock Car
Auto Racing (NASCAR) history, died at the age of 49 in a last-
lap crash at the 43rd Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Earnhardt was driving his famous black No. 3 Chevrolet and
vying for third place when he collided with another car, then
crashed into a wall. After being cut from his car, Earnhardt, 
was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead of
head injuries.

Kannapolis, NC: Dale Earnhardt Memorial.