By May of 1937, planes, trains and automobiles were an integral part of modern life. Transatlantic communication was well on its way to becoming the global streamlined system it is today. People crossed the world’s oceans quite regularly. There were a few misadventures along the way, the worst of which would take the lives of 35 people in a matter of seconds. The Hindenburg disaster remains one of the most shocking and spellbinding pieces of film footage in media history.

1930s Germany was a prosperous time and place for many. The Nazis held tight control of every aspect of society, creating a false utopia of strong employment, increased civic engagement and cultural exploration. The desire to show all that Germany had to offer after the humiliating defeat of the Great War was a must for Hitler and his followers. None could have anticipated the violent and horrifying events that would overtake the country in just a few short years. In 1937, times were good and innovation frequent.

The invention of an international air bus was the result of the efforts of the Zeppelin Company who would soon be famous for their aircraft carriers. The Hindenburg was the second of two enormous airships manufactured by the company, both giants of lightweight metal and gas cells. The air bus or air ship was constructed in Fredrichshafen, Germany and measured over 135 feet. Taking five years to build, the aircraft was the first transportation to cross the Atlantic by air. There was no passenger basket below the airship; the Hindenburg was a contained structure.

The Hindenburg was named for the former president of the Weimar republic, Paul Von Hindenburg. Considered a national hero, President Hindenburg passed away in 1934, never knowing the grisly outcome of his namesake. It was Hindenburg who appointed Hitler to the position of chancellor; a position that would act as springboard towards his ambitions as fuehrer. Hindenburg is thus associated with two disasters: the rise of Hitler and the downfall of transatlantic airships.

Already in service for a year before disaster struck, the Hindenburg air bus has proved popular among the elite traveler that utilized its services. A library, lounge, cafeteria and promenade made the long slow flight (approximately 60 hours) from German to America’s East coast both pleasurable and relaxing. It would all come to a crashing shocking halt as the giant air bus with its four strong engines came into land at the small airport in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6th, 1937.

Having thwarted the efforts of an earlier thunderstorm, the Hindenburg was slowly making its way in to land. 200 hundred feet above ground, and just as the first tie line descended, an ominous orange glow became visible. The massive gas filled balloon was about to burst. There were 91 people on board. 33 lost their lives jumping to the ground to avoid the flames. Another two were ravaged by flames.

People on the ground looked on in horror at the sight of flames billowing out of the airship’s fragile structure while people jumped to the ground. Sixty seconds from the sound of the explosion, the Hindenburg was gone, nothing more than ashes and burnt framing. The event was broadcast live on the radio.

The radio broadcast that is most famed by the Hindenburg disaster (with the famously haunting “oh the humanity!” cry from eye witness journalist, Herbert Morrison) was actually the first national coast to coast broadcast in the country. What was meant to be a shining day for the developing media/movie industry became a thunderous marker of what happens when dreams are marred by fate.

After the tragedy of that spring day, the growing popularity with the air bus system rapidly dissipated. No-one wanted to fly in a planed apt to seemingly spontaneous explosion. Theories abound on the cause of the Hindenburg’s combustion, from lighting storms to sabotage, but firm evidence of cause was never found.

The Hindenburg disaster marked the beginning of the end of Germany’s good times, at least for a few years anyway. Two years later, Hitler would invade Poland and the war to end all wars would become a hollow sentiment from a battlefield that paused but never ended. The time after World War I in Europe was a mixed muddle of progress and setbacks as nations recovered from conflict, dep

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The Hindenburg disaster marked the beginning of the end of Germany’s good times, at least for a few years anyway. Two years later, Hitler would invade Poland and the war to end all wars would become a hollow sentiment from a battlefield that paused but never ended. The time after World War I in Europe was a mixed muddle of progress and setbacks as nations recovered from conflict, depression and political upheaval. The Hindenburg Disaster was just one of many incidents that marked the years between the wars.

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Lost jobs, high unemployment, inflationary food and fuel costs as well as dissatisfaction with the federal government are nothing new in American history. Well before the Great Depression of the 1930s, Americans felt the pinch of economic woes. The panic of 1893 was one of the country’s first encounters with nationwide money troubles. On March 25, 1894 a group of citizens decided to do something about it. Coxey’s Army is often forgotten in the collective memory of the American people despite being the first official protest march in the country’s history.

In 1893 two major American railroad companies, the Reading and the Philadelphia, went under. With so many banks relying on the accounts of the railroads, the economic problems quickly flowed across the country. By late spring the stock market was in free fall and consumer confidence was at an all time low. In total, over 70 railroad companies, 600 banks and 15,000 businesses failed. The recession was a reflection of a depression spreading across Europe and it seemed nothing could stop what was happening. Many thought no one was even trying.

Small charitable groups and municipal organizations did their best to help the almost three million Americans who lost their job during the panic. But their resources were not equipped to cope with such numbers. The federal government, under then president Grover Cleveland, had little to no reaction to the panic. There was no revitalization plan, no increase in the money flow, no direction for business to follow.

Jacob Coxey was a business owner in Ohio and found it difficult to run his sand quarry given the problems facing the economy. He, like so many others, was frustrated at the lack of assistance offered by the federal government to America’s workers. Coxey felt an influx of money into the system as well as municipal projects to create jobs would do a lot to help the country get back on its feet. He decided to go to Washington and share his thoughts with the people up on the hill.

Coxey created an “industrial army” of workers who followed his lead and began to march. They left Massillon, Ohio on Easter Sunday and began their slow trek to the capital city.

As the workers traveled to the capital to express their outrage their numbers continued to swell.  News of Coxey’s army had spread and groups of unemployed men and women came from across the country to enlist. Coxey had hoped for a thousand to join him. What began as a large crowd of about 100 became 500 as they reached Washington D.C. on May 1^st.

Rather than ending in a massive victory for the working people and businesses of America, Coxey and his protest resulted in charges of trespassing and no change to the government’s handling of the economy. What the protestors did do however, was prove to a nation that

determination can inspire others to join a cause, whether worker or business owner, and that government should be more involved in the lives of its people. The panic of 1893 lasted four years and things only began to improve after a change of president. Crop prices began to increase and public perception of change helped restart the economy. The growing Populist party advocated governmental reform and the nation slowly put the crisis behind itself. Coxey was one example of the spirit of the reform movement.

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The Manhattan Project is infamous throughout the world as the spark that ignited irreversible change. It was a change that would end a world conflict and make nations wary of nuclear energy for all time.

Nuclear fission was first discovered in Germany in 1938, although several European scientists had been exploring the potential of the atom for years. Nuclear fission occurs when the nucleus of a single atom is split, cutting the atom in half and emitting deadly neutrons. A series of nuclear fissions is commonly known as a chain reaction and has the ability to produce or destroy, depending on the motives of its operators.

On December 2, 1942 the first successful nuclear fission experiment took place at the University of Chicago underneath the college stadium.  Enrico Fermian Italian Nobel prize-winning scientist was the first physicist to experiment with the capabilities of neutrons. Once on American soil, Fermi partnered with Niels Bohr a fellow scientist who proffered the idea of a nuclear chain reactionThey worked together for the University of Chicago.

By 1939, Fermi, Bohr, Einstein and others were actively working on the consequences of nuclear power. There had been no successful experiment to date, but it seemed to all involved only a matter of time. As World War II engulfed the world in a violence it could hardly contemplate, the band of physicists realized just how dangerous their work on atoms, neutrons and chain reactions could be in the hands of Nazi Germany. What they had discovered could change warfare forever. They decided to inform the president.

Albert Einsteinbeginning in 1939, wrote at least four letters to President Roosevelt explaining the implications of the experiments in America and in Europe on the properties of uranium and atomic division. As Einstein expounded on the possibilities of atomic energy to give the world new fuels, he simultaneously emphasized the potential harm of the same energy in the wrong hands.

The Depression still dominated FDR’s administration and finding funds for aiding and supervising the Manhattan Project seemed temporarily unnecessary. That is until the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 and America’s entry into the war. Funding for the Manhattan Project fueled experiments at colleges around the United States as scientists raced to stay ahead of the Nazis. So here then was the beginning of the arms race.

On a cold winter day in Chicago, unbeknownst by the majority of the world, the scientists set up their equipment under the racquetball courts of the college and were witness to the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction. In those moments of brilliant light and scientific progress, a new darkness descended upon the planet: the possibility to destroy millions of people in the blink of an eye.

Today, at least eight countries admit to holding nuclear weapons: China, France India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, UK and the USA. These are the countries that admit to harnessing the violent potential of nuclear energy. There is no way to know for certain if these are the only countries with nuclear arms. Those few brilliant scientists on December 2, 1942 could not have known how dangerous their research would become.

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Thousands out of work, the prices of stocks and shares free falling, natural disasters and a country crying out for change. It could be America today but in fact, it’s the combination of events that led to what is now known as the Great Depression. With overworked top soil ripped from the earth by prairie winds leading to the mass failure of America’s farming community coupled with dire consequences of a decade of overspending and credit buying, in 1929 the United States faced a disaster on a national level that no-one could have foreseen and no-one felt able to prevent.

Of course, that was before the arrival of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his “New Deal” for the country. The New Deal would include a rapid succession of economy recovery programs enacted at a whirlwind pace that may have not cured the Depression but certainly distracted the general populace from it long enough for recovery to take place.

“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”-FDR

It was FDR and his alphabet soup of change that gave America the boost it needed to leave the Dustbowl far behind. One must wonder if we will learn from our history.

On October 29, 1929, a decade of credit buying and high stock prices ended. In one day, the market dropped almost 13 percent causing mass panic and anxiety across the country. Although the stories of suicidal stockbrokers are exaggerated, the far-reaching global economic outcomes of the crash are not. The world suffered mass economic woes well into the 1940s.

By 1932, President Hoover, whether he was to blame or not, was considered responsible for the state of the country. 15 million out of work, a mass exodus from the mid west in search of work and refugee camps known as ‘Hoovervilles’ dotting the American landscape. Something had to change and an election was just around the corner.

FDR promised change and hope and despite a number of insults about his ability to lead and fears about his ideas increasing the national debt, he won the White House in November 1932 with an historic 472 electoral votes. His first hundred days in office saw the passage of more legislation than anytime before. Consulting America’s best and brightest to find out what could be done to fix the nation, FDR created a slew of programs and agencies to help rid America of negativity and hopelessness.

He had to help Wall Street, Main Street and everyone in between. FDR accomplished this by creating infrastructure jobs through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), environmental conservation jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), providing subsidies for farmers through the Farmer’s Security Administration (FSA), creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to insure savings deposits in the banks, and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to provide regulation to Wall Street. Programs that put artists and photographers to work capturing the culture of the country initiated the age of documentary film and photography. It was a busy and productive time.

FDR tried, for better or worse, to accommodate everyone and constantly fought off accusations of socialistic ideas. His hope was not to change the capitalist system but provide a temporary band-aid to an unstable economy through what seemed the only feasible solution. The poor congratulated his efforts; the rich despised him for them. It was a complicated time but a New Deal was definitely the result.

Today some of FDR’s programs stay with us, most notably the Social Security Administration. The sense of security enjoyed by modern day seniors was something unheard of in the early days of American capitalism. And as a new presidency looms before us during a time not dissimilar to that of 1929, one can only wonder what shape the promised change of the modern presidential candidates will take.

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