March 18, 1937: A gas leak at a school in New London, Texas results in an explosion that kills nearly 300 people.
The London School housed all 12 grades in a booming oil town. The lower grades had just let out, before the explosion, at 3:17 PM. Had the explosion been just half an hour later, the school would have been nearly empty, and the death toll minimal.
An early newsreel gave the death toll as 425. Like some other disasters, such as the 9/11 attacks, the number went down as duplicate reports were eliminated, eventually settling on 294. Walter Cronkite, eventually the anchor of The CBS Evening News, was a University of Texas student working for what became United Press International (UPI), and later said, "I did nothing in my studies nor in my life to prepare me for a story of the magnitude of that New London tragedy, nor has any story since that awful day equaled it."
It is the deadliest school disaster in American history, in spite of all the school shootings since Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999; and the 3rd-deadliest disaster in Texas history, after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the Texas City industrial explosion of 1947.
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March 18, 1937 was a Thursday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And the NBA hadn't been founded yet.
There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Americans beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 9-4 at the old Madison Square Garden. Sweeney Schriner and Nels Stewart of the Amerks, and Paul Thompson of the Hawks, each had 3 goals, but no assists. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Canadiens were still mourning the loss of superstar Howie Morenz, who had died 8 days earlier.
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