Today in News History

On July 9, several notable moments in the history of News stand out. In 551, A major earthquake strikes Beirut, triggering a devastating tsunami that affects the coastal towns of Byzantine Phoenicia, causing thousands of deaths. In 869, The 8.4-9.0 Mw Sanriku earthquake strikes the area around Sendai in northern Honshu, Japan. Inundation from the tsunami extended several kilometers inland. In 1900, The Governor of Shanxi province in North China orders the execution of 45 foreign Christian missionaries and local church members, including children. In 1918, In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101 and injuring 171 people, making it the deadliest rail accident in United States history. In 1956, The 7.7 Mw Amorgos earthquake shakes the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The shaking and the destructive tsunami that followed left fifty-three people dead. A damaging M7.2 aftershock occurred minutes after the mainshock. In 1958, A 7.8 Mw strike-slip earthquake in Alaska causes a landslide that produces a megatsunami. The runup from the waves reached 525 m (1,722 ft) on the rim of Lituya Bay; five people were killed. In 1979, A car bomb destroys a Renault motor car owned by "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld outside their home in France in an unsuccessful assassination attempt. In 1982, Pan Am Flight 759 crashes in Kenner, Louisiana, killing all 145 people on board and eight others on the ground. In 1995, The Navaly church bombing is carried out by the Sri Lanka Air Force killing 125 Tamil civilian refugees. In 2006, One hundred and twenty-five people are killed when S7 Airlines Flight 778, an Airbus A310 passenger jet, veers off the runway while landing in wet conditions at Irkutsk Airport in Siberia. Together, these milestones provide historical context for today's news news and ongoing narratives.