This week in history

1883 – Krakatoa

The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatoa, a small, uninhabited volcanic island located in Indonesia. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people.

1978 – Grease

In 1978, Paramount Pictures placed a big bet on a small musical called Grease and came up with not just an enormous hit movie, but a true pop-cultural phenomenon that included one of the most successful original motion picture soundtrack albums in music history.

1983 – Space

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford becomes the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on its third mission. The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and fellow crew members launched a communications satellite and conducted scientific experiments.

1985 – Titanic

Seventy-three years after it sunk to the North Atlantic ocean floor, a joint U.S.-French expedition locates the wreck of the RMS Titanic. The sunken liner was about 400 miles east of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic, some 13,000 feet below the surface.

1996 – Divorce

In 1981, nearly one billion television viewers tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana. At the time the couple’s romance was the envy of the world. However, the fairy tale couple grew apart and they announced a separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties.

1997 – Crash

Shortly after midnight, Diana, Princess of Wales dies in a car crash in Paris. She was 36. Her boyfriend, the Egyptian-born socialite Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the car, Henri Paul, also died. Princess Diana was one of the most popular public figures in the world. Her death was met with a massive outpouring of grief.

2005 – Katrina

Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane. Despite being only the third most powerful storm of the 2005 hurricane season, Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. It is believed that the hurricane caused more than 1,300 deaths.