On This Day, April 20th

1. 2010: The BP oil spill begins

PHOTO: hmns.org

PHOTO: hmns.org

PHOTO: newyorker

PHOTO: newyorker

The three month long BP oil spill has gone down as the largest offshore oil spill in history. It all started back on this day in 2010 when the Deep Water Horizon had almost finished drilling an exploratory well when a surge of natural gas came up the pipeline causing a series of explosions and fires on board the mass offshore drilling rig. There were 126 people working on board the rig that day and eleven lost their lives, with many more injured. Then things got drastically worse when the final crew members on board attempted to engage a safety mechanism called a blowout preventer, but there was a malfunction and the result of that was an uncontrollable flow of oil that would eventually spew a total of 210 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. Two days later the massive 400 foot long oil rig that cost an estimated $350 million to build back in 2001, sank to the bottom of the gulf in an area that was said to be over 5,000 ft deep.

2. 1999: Columbine school shooting takes place

PHOTO: WIKI

PHOTO: WIKI

PHOTO: blogspot

PHOTO: blogspot

On this day back in 1999 Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris showed up late to school around 11am wearing long black trench coats. Approximately 11:15 the boy walked into school carrying loaded weapons and proceeded to go on a shooting spree killing 13 people, 12 students and 1 teacher, and leaving 23 others severely wounded. Apparently Klebold who was 18, and Harris that was 17, had set two propane bombs in the cafeteria that were supposed to go off killing hundreds of students and then would sent everyone else running out the door where the boys would be waiting there with a line of gunfire. But when that didn’t happen that is when the boys went inside and just started shooting. There were many different speculations as to why the boys did it and if they had a reason for killing the people that they did or was it just random. Many thought jocks, Christians and minorities were targeted but there was never proven. By 11:35 am the boys turned the guns on themselves committing suicide. At the time this was the worst school shooting in history.

3. 1986: Michael Jordan scores a postseason record 63 pts in one game

PHOTO: nmplus

PHOTO: nmplus

PHOTO: footboxshop

PHOTO: footboxshop

The greatest basketball player of all time is Michael Jordan, and on this day back in 1986, Air Jordan himself scored a postseason record of 63 points against the Boston Celtics led by the legendary Larry Bird. Although Jordan had a fantastic game, the Bulls would end up loosing in overtime by just four points, 135-131. To make matters worse, the Celtics would go on to win the Finals that year so maybe a better way to look at it, at least it took the champs to take out Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Jordan had the last laugh though as he went on to win six championships, win two gold medals, five time NBA MVP, ten scoring records, and fourteen All-Star appearances and the list keeps on going. Nobody could play like Mike, How else are you gonna earn the nickname Air Jordan. Because Jordan is the greatest he was able to build an empire with the help of Nike to create the most recognized shoe logos in the world, the Air Jordans.