On this day: March 14
POSTED: 11:54 AM PST Mar 08, 2013
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Mar 13, 2013
America's first town hall meeting is held, Eli Whitney patents his cotton gin, Pan Am is incorporated, and JFK's body is moved to a permanent memorial, all on this day.
US Geological Survey
1910: Drilling near Bakersfield, Calif., the Lakeview Oil Company hits an unexpected amount of oil at their Number One well, creating a large blowout that overloaded storage tanks and turned the natural gas drilling operation into an immense out-of-control oil geyser. The Lakeview Gusher, as it became known, would release an estimated 9 million barrels of crude oil before it was brought under control 18 months later, making it the largest accidental oil spill in history.
