Hump Day History


This morning, as I was scrolling through Instagram, I came across this photo from Cleveland.

Balloonfest 1986 was organized as a fundraiser for United Way - they wanted to break the record set the year before at Disneyland's 30th birthday in Anaheim, and were set to release 1.5 million balloons.  The event started out as an exciting "expression of wonder" but soon became a disaster.

The balloons interrupted a Coast Guard rescue attempt - they could not dispatch their helicopter to reach an overturned boat.  Two people died.

The runway at a local airport had to be shut down.

Some prize winning horses were spooked and one was seriously injured.  The owner sued for $100,000.00

You can imagine the cleanup effort.




HistoryPhotographed
Gizmodo
Zim

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