This Day in History: May 6
May 6 has a way of producing events that mark the end of one era and the reluctant beginning of another.
1937 — The Hindenburg Burns at Lakehurst
At 7:25 p.m. on May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg caught fire while attempting to dock at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey. The hydrogen-filled zeppelin was on its first transatlantic crossing of the season. It had crossed from Frankfurt in just under three days. Thirty-six people died — thirteen passengers, twenty-two crew, and one ground worker. Herb Morrison’s radio broadcast, voice cracking mid-sentence, became one of the most replicated recordings of the twentieth century. The disaster did not kill one man. It killed an industry. Commercial airship travel never recovered. The age of the dirigible, already fading, was over by nightfall.
1954 — Roger Bannister Runs a Mile in Under Four Minutes
Seventeen years later to the day, a 25-year-old British medical student named Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds at Oxford’s Iffley Road track. The four-minute mile had been treated as a physiological wall, not merely a record. Bannister demolished the record and the myth simultaneously. Six weeks later, Australian runner John Landy broke it again. Within a year, multiple runners had done what had been called impossible. The barrier had never been physical. It had been psychological — and one man’s decision to stop believing in it was enough.
1942 — Corregidor Falls
On this date in 1942, U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered the island fortress of Corregidor to Japanese forces, completing Japan’s conquest of the Philippines. It was the largest surrender of American-commanded forces in history. Wainwright had held out after the fall of Bataan, enduring weeks of constant aerial and artillery bombardment. He would spend three years as a prisoner of war. MacArthur’s famous promise — I shall return — would take more than two years to fulfill.
1840 — The Penny Black Goes Into Use
On May 6, 1840, Great Britain introduced the Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive postage stamp for use in a public postal system. Before it, postage was paid by the recipient, not the sender, and rates varied by distance. The Penny Black standardized the cost of sending a letter to one penny regardless of destination within Britain. It was a small rectangle of black paper bearing Queen Victoria’s profile. It changed how societies communicated. The principle it established — prepaid, standardized postage — still governs postal systems everywhere.
Four events. Four different centuries of consequence. May 6 delivers.