By Richard T. Cartwright, PE, CHMM, (IHMM, AHMP and APICS) Fellow.
Richard died April 21, 2025; honoring the work he did with hazmat history is one small way to keep his memory alive.
The saying, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” is more than a cliché. It is a reminder that we must constantly be learning from the past. Here’s a look back at major historical events that happened today in the world of hazardous materials.
April 17, 2013
An ammonium nitrate explosion occurred at the West Fertilizer Company storage and distribution facility in West, Texas (18 miles north of Waco). Fifteen people died, 200 were injured and more than 150 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Of those who died, 10 were first responders and two were civilians who volunteered to help fight the fire. A lack of regulation and information provided to firefighters contributed to the high death rate.
April 17, 1970
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13 safely returned to Earth. Two days into its mission, an oxygen tank exploded, severely damaging the spacecraft’s electrical system. The lunar landing had to be aborted. The safe return came despite limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water and a need to improvise carbon dioxide removal system.
April 17, 1930
Arnold Collins, American research scientist working at DuPont, recorded in his laboratory notebook that he discovered a new rubber-like compound. Assigned to make a very pure sample of divinylacetylene, he distilled the products of an acetylene polymerization reaction. Afterwards, he collected a small amount of an unknown liquid, which he put aside in stoppered test tubes. A few days later he found that the liquid had congealed into a clear homogenous material. When Collins dislodged the material from its container, it bounced. He noticed that a mixture had solidified “to white, somewhat rubber-like masses,” from polymerization of mono-vinylacetylene mixed with concentrated HCl. He theorized the new compound was 2-chloro-1, 3-butadiene. The DuPont research group eventually recognized its potential as the first synthetic rubber. In 1932, DuPont began large-scale production of polychloroprene, which was first marketed as Duprene. It was sold as a material useful for products impervious to oil, for electrical wire insulation and as a coating compound. Today, it is known as Neoprene.
April 17, 1863
Augustus Love, British geophysicist and mathematician, was born. He discovered a major type of earthquake wave that was subsequently named for him. Love assumed that our Earth consists of concentric layers that differ in density and postulated the occurrence of a seismic wave confined to Earth’s surface layer (crust), which propagated between the crust and the underlying mantle. His prediction was confirmed by recordings of the behavior of waves in the crust. Based on measurements of Love waves, he proposed a method to measure the thickness of the Earth’s crust.
April 17, 1815
Heavy eruptions of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia finally began letting up; 80,000 people died. The eruption that began on April 5 was the largest ever recorded. So much rock and ash was thrown out of Tambora, that its height was reduced from 14,000 to 9,000 feet. The eruptions affected the climate worldwide. Enough ash had been thrown into the atmosphere that global temperatures were reduced over the next year. The eruption was blamed for snow and frost in New England during June and July that summer.
Historical hazardous materials management events are posted 365 days a year at this LinkedIn discussion group.
