On July 2, 1937 an aircraft disappeared over the Pacific ocean. Speculation as to what happened to that aircraft has been the subject of public attention, and more than a thousand books, since. But, lost in all the discussion, is that there were two pioneering aviators aboard that Lockheed Electra that never made its scheduled landing at tiny Howland island, and arguably the one most important to the field of aviation has somehow become merely a footnote.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.