All Video of History

Exxon Valdez spill is world's worst oil pollution accident - March 24, 1989 ------------- Eleven million gallons of crude oil devastated Alaska's coastline and wildlife when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and began to leak its cargo. One of the greatest environmental disasters of modern times occurred on this day in 1989, when the US supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, Prince William Sound in Alaska, spilling at least 11 million gallons of oil into the ocean. As the video above recalls, the spill affected 1,300 miles of shoreline and would cover over 11,000 square miles of ocean, killing hundreds of thousands of birds and sea mammals and hugely disrupting the economy of the area. Immediate recovery and clean-up efforts were hampered by the location of the spill – accessible only by boat, plane or helicopter – and high winds, which prevented attempts to suck the slick from the top of the waters. The crash was later blamed on crew fatig...

On this day in 1839, the initials “O.K.” are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans. During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger, educated circles to misspell words intentionally, then abbreviate them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of common words, such as “kewl” for “cool” or “DZ” for “these,” the “in crowd” of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they abbreviated. Popular abbreviations included “KY” for “No use” (“know yuse”), “KG” for “No go” (“Know go”), and “OW” for all right (“oll wright”). Of all the abbreviatio...