Talk:T. A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant explosion

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on October 4, 2012, October 4, 2018, and October 4, 2023.

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Newspaper images[edit]

Excerpt from New York Times, October 13, 1918 / Excerpt from New York Times, October 13, 1918 (PDF). --Dual Freq 11:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New York Tribune, New York City, New York October 5, 1918. --Dual Freq 03:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Belated thanks for these. Great if anyone knows which 1918 newspaper should be credited for the Wikipedia article's crater photo? —Patrug (talk) 14:15, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

EDT[edit]

The article mentions the time as being in EDT, though it is unclear whether EDT was observed in New Jersey at the time. It had been enacted by federal law earlier in the year but was soon repealed, and many areas did not observe it until 1966. But when I just made some grammar edits I left it alone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gcjnst (talk • contribs) 23:30, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. This was researched carefully, and EDT was indeed in place on October 4, 1918.^[1] Sources differ about whether the initial explosion was approximately 7:30 or 7:35 or 7:36 or 7:40, but there's no disagreement about the hour. —173.68.139.31 (talk) 09:39, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Clocks Change Tomorrow; Return to Solar-Time Basis After Daylight Saving Period" (PDF). The New York Times. October 26, 1918. All clocks in the United States should stop for one hour at 2 A. M. Sunday, Oct. 27, and then again take up the procession of the hours. The country will then be back upon a sun-time basis after its first seven months of the daylight saving experiment.

100th anniversary[edit]

Thanks to the "On this day" section of Wikipedia's Main Page for October 4, this article just received 15,000 page views for the 100th anniversary of the explosion. Congratulations to everyone involved in documenting this interesting piece of history. —173.68.139.31 (talk) 17:43, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ammonium nitrate involved?[edit]

There was briefly a footer navbox added to this article named {{Ammonium nitrate disasters}} but I see no mention of that chemical in this article. As a result I've removed it and removed the mention of this article in that template. If I was mistaken, please feel free to undo my edits but before you do, add some mention of that chemical to this article, properly cited to the available sources. Otherwise links mentioning it that lead back here are confusing to readers. Thanks. --Krelnik (talk) 02:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:Krelnik: Would this succfice as a citation? (Atlas Obscura) I don't know which specific newspapers they are nor if they are archived online. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Krelnik and Super Goku V: In our article, I just credited the giant crater to ammonium nitrate, with reference to the main source book on the explosion. (I don't currently have access to the book, so I can't provide the page number or the original newspaper source.) Most of the Gillespie explosives were TNT, so I'm not sure if this event should be added to List of ammonium nitrate disasters and/or the new Template:Ammonium nitrate disasters. What do you think? —24.191.101.223 (talk) 11:09, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Clocks Change Tomorrow; Return to Solar-Time Basis After Daylight Saving Period" (PDF). The New York Times. October 26, 1918. All clocks in the United States should stop for one hour at 2 A. M. Sunday, Oct. 27, and then again take up the procession of the hours. The country will then be back upon a sun-time basis after its first seven months of the daylight saving experiment.

[1]