The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald……
November 10, 1975……
The ore carrier sinks during a storm on Lake Superior. None of the 29 crew members survived. Gordon Lightfoot‘s song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1976, #2 hit) was based on this tragedy. When the ship was christened in 1958 it took three attempts to break the champagne bottle. This is considered a bad omen in shipping lore. Also, during the ceremony a spectator had a heart attack and later died.
When launched, she was the largest ship on North America’s Great Lakes, and remains the largest to have sunk there.