The Kinzua Bridge was a railroad trestle that had spanned Kinzua Creek in McKean County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The bridge was 301 feet (92 m) tall and 2,052 feet (625 m) long prior to its collapse. The bridge was originally built from iron in 1882 and was billed as the "Eighth Wonder of the World", holding the record as the tallest railroad bridge in the world for two years. In 1900 the bridge was dismantled and simultaneously rebuilt out of steel to allow it to accommodate heavier trains. It stayed in commercial service until 1959 and was sold to the state government of Pennsylvania in 1963, becoming the centerpiece of a state park. Restoration of the bridge began in 2002, but before it was finished, a tornado struck the bridge in 2003 causing a large portion of the bridge to collapse. Contributing to the collapse was the failure, caused by corrosion, of the anchor bolts holding the bridge towers to their foundations. Before its collapse, the Kinzua Bridge was ranked as the fourth tallest railway bridge in the United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1982. The Kinzua Bridge is in Kinzua Bridge State Park off U.S. Route 6 near the borough of Mount Jewett, Pennsylvania.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinzua_Bridge

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1770:

British soldiers fired into a threatening crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five civilians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre

1850:

The Britannia Bridge , a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans crossing the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, opened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia_Bridge

1940:

World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the Politburo signed an order for the execution of about 22,000 Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war that were captured during the Soviet invasion of Poland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

1946:

The term "Iron Curtain", describing the symbolic, ideological, and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas during the Cold War, was popularized by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain

1960:

British marine biologist Alister Hardy introduced his aquatic ape hypothesis, theorizing that swimming and diving for food exerted a strong evolutionary effect that was partly responsible for the divergence between the common ancestors of humans and other great apes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aquatic_ape_hypothesis

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

moonraker (n): (nautical) A small, light sail high on a mast http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moonraker

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man. --William Beveridge http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Beveridge