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Nov. 19, 1938:  Robert Edward “Ted” Turner is born in Cincinnati.  Turner parlays his father’s billboard business into a media empire including CNN, TNT, and TBS.  A convert to environmental causes, he puts his money where his famous mouth is funding environmental news and documentaries, creating philanthropic foundations and the animated superhero "Captain Planet," and reintroducing endangered species on his massive landholdings.

 

Nov. 19, 1984:  What industrial safety experts long feared comes to pass as a natural gas facility in the midst of a densely-populated area blows up. Over 600 die in the Mexico City suburb of San Juanico as a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) tank farm explodes.  Two weeks later, the scrutiny on large industrial facilities increases after the Bhopal disaster in India.

 

Nov. 19, 2002:  Grounded six days earlier, the oil tanker Prestige breaks up, spilling its cargo onto the beaches of Northwestern Spain. At right, a work cleans up the spill.

 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

 

This feature is compiled by Peter Dykstra, an MNN contributor and publisher of Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate.