In 1953 , the 600-foot-long, 70- foot-wide Marine Angel transited the Chicago River
The SS Meteor was launched as the SS Frank Rockefeller in 1896. The last remaining of only 44 “whaleback” ships ever built, she was designed by a Scottish immigrant named Alexander McDougall. She is 380 feet long, 45 feet wide and 26 feet deep. This ship was designed to meet the specific requirements for shipping in the frigid choppy waters of the Great Lakes and for traveling through the shallow locks at Sault St. Marie.
McDougall’s innovative ships earned the name “whaleback” for their cigar-shaped steel hulls which rode very low in the water when loaded with cargo. This low profile was an attempt to make them more stable than other vessels. The Meteor also has a system of turrets, or rounded rooms, on her deck, which allowed the crew to move between decks and machinery spaces without letting water inside. Her unique design allowed the Meteor to be remodeled for a number of different uses. The whalebacks were also built with flat bottoms for more hauling capacity, and a conical bow and stern for improved hydrodynamics. Rounded decks allowed waves to wash over much of the ship instead of pounding against the bulwarks as they would on a conventional steamer.
Although no whalebacks were built after 1898, many of them continued to travel the lakes for decades before they were scrapped for various reasons.
- Dara Fillmore
In 1960 a CIA Lockheed U-2 flown by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union during an aerial reconnaissance overflight codenamed Operation GRAND SLAM.
In an attempt to cover up the overflight, a U-2 was painted in NASA colors and presented as a weather aircraft. Unaware that Powers was still alive and in Soviet hands, a story that the pilot might have fallen unconscious while the auto pilot was engaged was fabricated. This story was spread through the press.
Day later Soviet Premier Khrushchev, proceeded to unveil this ruse by announcing that not only Powers was still alive but that the covert U-2 technologies had mostly survived the crash.
The U-2 program was soon public knowledge.
