this year, c-span's touring cities across the country, exploring american history. a look at the reason visit to tacoma, washington. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. the area we are standing in right now is in the southern section of puget sound which is sort of washington state of the pacific northwest great inland water. when the transcontinental railroad came, there was talk about one day being able to span puget sound. it really was not an undertaking anybody was prepared to do. during the depression, federal programs, like the building of the grand coulee dam, and stuff that were big job creating public works project in the northwest. in the mid-1930's, there was

talk about creating a bridge to reach from tacoma to the peninsula. the bridge was opened on the first of july in 1940. after two years of construction. the tacoma narrows is also a bit of a wind tunnel. people working on the deck began to notice movement. almost like airplane wing lift in the bridge. they began to feel a vertical lift in the bridge, especially in the center span. you know, there was no suspension bridge anywhere like this, anywhere in the pacific northwest. there was an unfamiliarity of how a big thing like this was supposed to behave.

so people were people excited about this. there is a certain gracefulness about a bridge like this. people, i guess, just wanted to think there was not anything wrong. that it was normal. once they got the concrete on the deck, the additional weight would all go away. as we got out of summer and began to get into fall, and the winds picked up, our prevailing winds out of the southwest, which blows almost directly across the bridge deck, they begin to notice that there was an angulation in that deck. by fall, soldiers were coming out from the military base for the novelty of writing the riding the bridge. they would kick their feet over the railing and stand on the outside of the bridge. they would lean out as far as they could and the center deck of the bridge would be rising. not just inches, but to a point

where the undulation was so severe the two automobiles covering in opposite directions, the headlights would disappear under the rolling hill of the deck. for conservative people, something was horribly wrong from the very beginning. for a community that was proud of their new bridge, for the many people that participated in building the bridge, it was unthinkable that this was wrong. but, the engineers began to work on the idea of some stiffening of the bridge. they thought the railings on the side could be conferred it into deep i-beams and would add some rigidity to the bridge. some of those minor structural additions, modifications were

implemented, or were about to be implemented as we got through october of 1940. by early november of 1940, only four and a half months after the bridge had been completed, the weather begin to shift into its winter patterns. that really was the bellwether of what was about to happen. on the morning of november 7, the winds picked up to 40 miles per hour and they were fiercely directed at the side of the bridge. the way wind comes over the wing on an airplane. they were fiercely directed right beside the bridge as if -- the wave wind comes over the wing on an airplane. undulationthe normal of the bridge, the deck began to twist and turn. everybody noticed immediately that had been watching the bridge that that was behavior people had not noticed before.

they in the morning of seventh, there were hundreds, if not thousands of people who would come out on both sides of the bridge to be able to start to watch what was happening and watch this behavior. the bridge keeper, it was a toll bridge, so the bridge keepers had decided that they would close the bridge and it was wrong. it was not safe anymore. was not an action that should happen within inanimate object of this size. one less car was -- one last car was coming across the bridge, even axis had been cut off. there was last car coming across one the bridge. a man coming from his summer home from the peninsula had a cocker spaniel with him in the car. by the time he got to the most severely moving part of the bridge deck, he cannot control

the automobile. the car screeched around and -- he jumped up and ran. for the next 30 or 40 minutes, the bridge went into a violent one hadmovement that no seen before. all the cross on both sides closed in to just watch. everyone started to suspect that the impossible is about to happen and the bridge was going to give it up and failed. with no one really on the bridge professory enough, a solved another death

there is great footage, it looks like a steven spielberg movie. today, you watch that footage and you cannot even imagine that somebody would run out onto this tearing deck.his the dog was too terrified to get out of the car, so he gave up and strolled back and was not down a couple of times by the bridge. andlly, got off the bridge in the few moments that followed, the deck tore away from the hangers. listening to gunshots. the jules -- these of these big bolts and there's a big bolt on the bottom that keeps from

filling out. those jewels begin to pop and the cables begin to snap under the force. the light standards on the bridge are just cutting swirling across rapidly and catching on the cables. in just a moment, the connection between two sections of the bridge deck fail and there is a violent twist and tear of the deck. in the moments that followed that, huge sections all begin to fail. most of the center span of the bridge, underneath the big suspensions cables, falls away and plunge into puget stand. no one is killed in the incident, no one is even hurt. they demolish as much as they can in november of 1940. then as they begin to think about having to reengineer the whole thing, the clouds of war

closed in. by that time, they realize there is no way they will get the bridge rebuilt. when pearl harbor happens and the shipyard has become a critical strategic thing. away fromshifts public works projects. towers and steel on the bridge is removed and brought into the war effort. it's recycled and turned into bullets and tanks or whatever. sections of the bridge, of the thel are actually use on alaska highway to build a highway up to alaska during the second world war because of the program and the ties with the northwest and alaska.

the remnants sit in the channel through the war. it is only after the war that they begin to reconstruct another suspension bridge. in 1950, the second bridge is complete. that is the bridge we see in the distance here. this steel bridge that is standing in the distance. i doubt that there is a textbook, or a reference book written in about bridge engineering that does not include tacoma in the index because of the tacoma narrows bridge. it is impossible for me to imagine that engineering students all over the world have seen the film of the collapse. it is one of those absolutely spellbinding moments in engineering history.

one of those disasters, those utter failures of design that is completely captured on film. it is amazing. it still is job dropping to see -- jaw dropping to see a huge endeavor like this, a physical dance move with this much , with this much movement that are out of the parameters of the original design. tour staffour city's recently visited tacoma. learn more about tacoma and other stops on our tour on c-span.org. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> monday night on the communicators.

>> hackers hack humans. >> we are at the black hat conference in las vegas talking about cyber security and cyber threats with the ceo of net squared. >> it's not easy to patch a very large organization and keep on patching it months after months. think ofhave to really the defense. to itnot keep reacting anymore. we have to look for threats. we to set booby-traps. we have to create customized environments. we have to engage in threat hunting. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. this week on real america, give yourself the green light.

the 1954 general motors film encouraging citizens to support programs to improve roads and highways. here is a preview. [whistling] >> hey pal, what is the do? >> load and unload buddy. with 54 million vehicles on our streets and roads today, 50% more than before the war, by 1975, they say we will be driving 85 million. usa. will you stop honking, we are not going anywhere. alley, morningy rush and the evening weight. fight your way home from work.

you think you have it made, good job. so you get a hold of the suburbs, away from the city smoke come out from the shadows the factory. into the clean air. big dream coming true. but it backfired into a pipe dream. exhaust pipe dream. every night, it takes longer to get home. wasting more time in gasoline. no wonder everybody's asking -- acting so nervous. >> don't honk your horn. raise your voice, asked for better highways and more marketing space. it is your country. to get the green light, write

your state capital, right washington, write your hometown official. postcard or newspaper editor, call your radio and tv commentators. support your highway officials. voice. watch the entire home on railamerica here on american history tv honesty and three. -- here on c-span3. >> all persons have business between the honorable supreme court to go and give their attention. >> landmark cases, c-span special history series, produced