A bit of New York history I had never heard of...

[Prefer]

On the foggy morning of Saturday, July 28, 1945, Lt. Colonel William Smith was piloting a U.S. Army B-25 bomber through New York City.

...

The Crash
At 9:49 a.m., the ten-ton, B-25 bomber smashed into the north side of the Empire State Building. The majority of the plane hit the 79th floor, creating a hole in the building eighteen feet wide and twenty feet high. The plane's high-octane fuel exploded, hurtling flames down the side of the building and inside through hallways and stairwells all the way down to the 75th floor.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1940s/a/empirecrash.htm

[eppur_se_muova]

1. This was actually much discussed shortly after 9/11 ... nt

[Cassandra]

6. The Empire State Building is a traditional design...

and much stronger. The plane was smaller, too.
Did you know that the ESB was pre-fab, as opposed to the Chrysler Building, which was, essentially, handmade?

[eppur_se_muova]

8. That was pretty much the conclusion.

One engineer compared the design behind the WTC as being like that of a garbage can ... most reassuring.

Compared to modern planes, the B-24,25,26 etc. were TINY! I was sort of flabbergasted the first time I saw one in real life (a restored original, not mockup) and realized how small and low-tech it was. The thought of flying a crew in that thing over Europe just struck me as hair-raisingly scary. It took some unbelievably gutsy guys to do that.

[ben_meyers]

2. Amazing

Did you hear about the Lindberg baby?

[Prefer]

7. When we cleaned out my great grandfathers house

there was a scrap book with tons of newspaper clippings about Lindburgh's being kidnapped.

But who exactly was Lindburg? He was the son of a politician right? What did he represent politically at that time?

[HereSince1628]

3. That's OK, I used a cell phone for the first time last month.

But I think I've seen every old news reel ever made.

[NC_Nurse]

4. There was a famous picture of this from Life magazine. My grandparents

had a book of the most famous pictures form Life, it was one I looked at many times.

[Captain Hilts]

5. Only clue most tenants had something was wrong was some of the elevators didn't work.

It's built that solidly.

I apologize for the saracastic responses some people have offered here.

I'm an Empire State Building buff and love B-25 Mitchells.