North Sea flood of 1962
The North Sea flood of 1962 was a natural disaster affecting mainly the coastal regions of West Germany and in particular the city of Hamburg in the night from 16 February to 17 February 1962. In total, the homes of about 60,000 people were destroyed, and the death toll amounted to 315 in Hamburg. The extratropical cyclone responsible for the flooding had previously crossed the United Kingdom as the Great Sheffield Gale, devastating the city of Sheffield and killing nine people.
Great Sheffield Gale hit the UK and Norway
The Great Sheffield Gale is the name given to an intense European windstorm which crossed the United Kingdom in mid-February 1962, devastating the city of Sheffield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Nine people were killed across the country, including four in Sheffield; damage in the city was on a widespread and severe scale never before witnessed in a major British city from a European windstorm, and only later matched by the effects of the 1968 Scotland storm in Glasgow. The extratropical cyclone responsible for the gale subsequently moved over the North Sea, contributing to the North Sea flood of 1962, a storm surge in which at least 347 people died, predominantly in West Germany.
Canadian Pacific Railway opened
The Canadian Pacific Railway, also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968-1996), was a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, the railway owned approximately 20,100 kilometres (12,500 mi) of track in seven provinces of Canada and into the United States, stretching from Montreal to Vancouver, and as far north as Edmonton. Its rail network also served Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, and Albany, New York, in the United States.
Robert Maillart was born
Robert Maillart was a Swiss civil engineer who revolutionized the use of structural reinforced concrete with such designs as the three-hinged arch and the deck-stiffened arch for bridges, and the beamless floor slab and mushroom ceiling for industrial buildings. His Salginatobel (1929-1930) and Schwandbach (1933) bridges changed the aesthetics and engineering of bridge construction dramatically and influenced decades of architects and engineers after him. In 1991 the Salginatobel Bridge was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
