CARLATA BRADLEY
On this day in 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (seated) for the Soviet KGB spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (right) being held by the U.S.
Francis Gary Powers and a U2 recon aircraft .
The Glienicke bridge just after the Powers swap.
Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge, as workers began excavating
3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.
Following the Gold Rush boom that began in 1849, speculators realized the
land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in value in direct proportion
to its accessibility to the city. Soon, a plan was hatched to build a bridge that
would span the Golden Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula with
the southern end of Marin County.
Although the idea went back as far as 1869, the proposal took root in 1916. A
former engineering student, James Wilkins, working as a journalist with the
San Francisco Bulletin, called for a suspension bridge with a center span of
3,000 feet, nearly twice the length of any in existence. Wilkins’ idea was
estimated to cost an astounding $100 million. So, San Francisco’s city
engineer, Michael M. O’Shaughnessy (he’s also credited with coming up
with the name Golden Gate Bridge), began asking bridge engineers whether
they could do it for less.
Engineer and poet Joseph Strauss, a 5-foot tall Cincinnati-born Chicagoan,
said he could.
Eventually, O’Shaughnessy and Strauss concluded they could build a pure suspension bridge within a practical range of $25-30 million with a main span
at least 4,000 feet. The construction plan still faced opposition, including
litigation, from many sources. By the time most of the obstacles were cleared,
the Great Depression of 1929 had begun, limiting financing options, so officials convinced voters to support $35 million in bonded indebtedness, citing the
jobs that would be created for the project. However, the bonds couldn’t be
sold until 1932, when San-Francisco based Bank of America agreed to buy
the entire project in order to help the local economy.
TIM MAGUIRE
On this day in 1940, the middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state collapsed during a 42 mph windstorm. The suspension
bridge had opened to traffic on July 1, 1940. The collapse had lasting
effects on science and engineering.
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018)
Billy Graham was an American evangelist, a prominent evangelical Christian
figure, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him
"among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.
ROSS SIMPSON
Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman)
Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan revolutionized
folk music in the 1960’s with albums such as The
Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, and
Blonde on Blonde and songs such as "The Times
They Are a-Changin’," "Like a Rolling Stone," and
"Positively 4th Street."
Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.
On this day in 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge,
as workers started excavating 3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the
structure’s huge anchorages. The bridge would span the Golden
Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait, connecting the San Francisco
Peninsula with the southern end of Marin County.
The Golden Gate bridge took over four years to construct and
officially opened May 27, 1937. The longest bridge span in the
world at the time. The first public crossing had taken place on
the day before, when 200,000 people walked, ran and even
roller skated over the new bridge.
Pedestrian walk over day on May 27, 1937, vehicle traffic followed the next day (below).
The Golden Gate Bridge at sunset, as seen from north of Alcatraz
Island.
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