June 30, 1908: The Tunguska Explosion

June 30, 1908: The Tunguska Explosion -- also called the Tunguska Event or the Tunguska Incident -- occurs at 7:17 AM over the Podkamennaya, Tunguska River, in what is now Kransnoyarsk Krai, central Siberia, in Russia.

The explosion is estimated to have a yield of at least 3 megatons of TNT. To put that in perspective: Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, had a yield of 15 kilotons -- so the Tunguska Explosion was 200 times more powerful.

The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga (snowforest, the Arctic equivalent of a rainforest) flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 830 square miles, and eyewitness reports suggest that at least 3 people may have died in the event. Had it been over a city, thousands could have been killed.

A 1929 photo, showing the still-flattened, not-yet-removed trees

The explosion is generally attributed to a meteor air burst: The atmospheric explosion of a stony asteroid, about 200 feet across. The asteroid approached from the east-south-east, and probably with a relatively high speed of about 60,000 miles per hour. Though it is classified as an impact event, the object is thought to have exploded at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles, rather than having hit the Earth’s surface, leaving no impact crater.

The Tunguska Event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts occurred in prehistoric times. One is credited with wiping out the dinosaurs, 65 million or so years ago.

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June 30, 1908 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees, 8-0 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. Cy Young, at 41 belying his age and defying Father Time, pitches his 3rd career no-hitter. He will remain the oldest pitcher to throw one until Warren Spahn surpasses him in 1961. The Highlanders were renamed the Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-0 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Luther Taylor pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 3-1 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. 

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-2 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 at South Side Park in Chicago. Doc White outpitched George Mullin. Ty Cobb went 0-for-3.

* The Cleveland Naps beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the manager and slugging 2nd baseman for whom the Cleveland team was named, went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Boston Doves and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at the South End Grounds in Boston. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Doves swept, 6-1 and 14-5. They were named for their owners, the Dovey brothers. William H. Russell bought them in 1911, and renamed them the Boston Rustlers. He died after his first season, and they were bought by James Gaffney, who was an official, a "Brave," in New York's Tammany Hall political organization. He renamed the team the Boston Braves.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.