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Historic Ideas That Aged Like Complete Garbage

Khalid Elhassan July 11, 2020 35 min

Madame Nhu - South Vietnam — Protests in Saigon. People's World

10. “I’m Confident That It’ll Work“

Contemporary coverage of the whale disposal idea. Eugene Register Guard

As an Oregon Highway Division official told news reporters about the authorities’ idea for getting rid of the dead whale: “Well, I’m confident that it’ll work. The only thing is, we’re not sure just exactly how much explosives it will take to disintegrate this thing, so the scavengers, seagulls, and crabs and whatnot can clean it up“.

Dynamite was buried beneath the whale, primarily on the landward side so most of the carcass would get blown into the ocean. Scores of bystanders had gathered to watch the spectacle, and were moved back about a quarter of a mile away as a safety precaution. The onlookers cheered when the dynamite was detonated at 3:45 PM, on November 12^th, 1970. However, their cheers quickly turned into shrieks of panic when it became clear that the authorities had greatly underestimated both the blast zone, and what constituted a safe distance.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.