On a normal news twenty-four hours , a record book - settingfemale flier , a terrifying plosion at an industrial plant or the death of a aphrodisiac boob tube image belike would grab a lot of headline . Not to mention the discovery of a signal from space that might perhaps come from an extraterrestrial civilization .
Yet , when all of these events happen , they got surprisingly little insurance coverage from the sensitive and even less attention from the world . It was almost as if they did n’t even happen .
Why did all of these effect go so unnoticed ? Because they had the bad luck to occur either on the same daylight or around the same prison term as some even - large , more spectacular happening . Like the sinking of a supposedlyunsinkable ocean lineror a much - awaited royal wedding . Whether we ’re talking about the front page of previous newspapers or trends on Twitter , humans seem to have a modified capacitance to focalize upon multiple consequence at once .
Without further ado , here are newspaper headline - making 10 events that were dominate by even bigger occurrence .
10: 1912: Aviation Feat Missed Because of Titanic Disaster
In 1911 , just eight years after the airplane was fabricate , Harriet Quimby became the first U.S. licensed femalepilot . She was so completed that she bring in as much as $ 1,500 for performing in air show . In addition to being proficient , Quimby , 36 , was so cool and collected that even when her engine lay off during a flight to Mexico , she was able-bodied to glide safely to a landing [ source : Tyson ] .
In the spring of 1912 , she come up with an idea for a spectacular feat . She would be the first woman to aviate across the English Channel . Louis Bleriot had been the first man to do this three years before [ source : Daniels , Hyslop and Brinkley ] .
As she had design , Quimby ask off from Dover , England , on the cockcrow of April 16 , 1912 , and despite the haze , completed the flight of steps and touched down on a Gallic beach just 59 minutes later [ source : Daniels , Hyslop and Brinkley , varlet 282 ] . regrettably , nobody paid much attention , because of the sinking feeling of theTitanicthe 24-hour interval before [ source : History.com ] . Sadly , in July of the same yr , Quimby was killed in a plane clangor while flee from Boston to New York [ source : Tyson ] .
9: 1941: Remember Pearl Harbor, but Not Manila
By all rights , Dec. 8 , 1941 , should have been a day that lived in infamy , to borrow a phrasal idiom from President Franklin Roosevelt . On that date , a force ofJapanesewarplanes attack American military bases in the Philippines , and bombed Manila , that nation ’s biggest urban center [ reference : Campbell ] .
Leon Long , a U.S. military personnel who worked inaircraftmaintenance , recalled in a 2013 interview that he was coming back from a lunch break with a friend when they saw 50 warplanes derive upon their airfield and open fire . After an hour of bombing and strafing , most of the American hoagy and battler planing machine on the ground were destroyed , and 100 U.S. force were all in . Long somehow survive , and eventually cringe out from under the physical structure of two dead airmen [ source : Campbell ] .
But the sneak flack on the Philippines , a preliminary to a brutal Nipponese invasion and occupation of that state , has long been overshadowed by the upshot that go on just a few hours earlier , on the other side of the international date crease — the Dec. 7 , 1941 , sneak onset on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii . In that incident , 2,403 people die [ source : Campbell ] .
8: 1947: Industrial Disaster Obscured by Jackie Robinson
April 16 , 1947 , was a risky daylight in Texas City , a port in Galveston Bay on the gulf coast of Texas . Longshoremen were loading a ship , the SS Grandcamp , with cargo that included tobacco plant , groundnut , authorities - ownedammunitionand ammonium nitrate . The latter was a chemical substance that in World War II had been used as an explosive , but subsequently was put to use as a plant food [ sources : History.com , Moore Library ] .
At 9:12 a.m. that day , the ammonium nitrate aboard the ship short detonated . Fireballs streaked across the sky and could be seen for mile around , as blood-red - live melted piece of the ship were blast out of the wharfage . The explosion was so intense that it caused a 15 - foot - in high spirits ( 4.6 - meter - in high spirits ) tidal wave that flooded the area and shatter windows in Houston , 40 miles ( 64 kilometers ) aside . The explosion also ruin a Monsanto chemical substance plant a few hundred feet from the ship . In all , 581 people were killed and 3,500 injured . The accident was attributed to a lit cigarette [ sources : History.com , Moore Library ] .
But the Texas City blast , one of the uncollectible industrial catastrophe ever , did n’t get the tending it deserved . That ’s because the sidereal day before , the Brooklyn Dodgers’Jackie Robinsonbecame the first player to ruin baseball ’s color barrier [ source : Heyman ] .
7: 1959: U.S. and Soviets on Brink of War; Nobody Notices
On Feb. 3 , 1959 , Soviet border guard stopped a convoy of four U.S. Army hand truck headed from West Berlin , on a unremarkable tripper from the free division of thedivided German capital letter , through communistic territory to East Germany . After the Americans refused an inspection , the Soviets seized the trucks , along with five American personnel , and held them jailed overnight . New York Times correspondent Arthur J. Olsen compose this kidnapping " appeared to be a plotted trial " of the U.S. ability to plunk for a garrison in West Berlin [ source : Olsen ] .
It took a gamey - level official dissent from the U.S. embassy in Moscow to get the Soviets to finally exhaust the prisoners and allow their trucks through the checkpoint more than two day later [ source : Olsen 2 ] .
On a different twenty-four hour period , the Soviet provocation might have dominated the newspaper publisher . But a plane carry Buddy Holly , Ritchie Valens and J.P. " The Big Bopper " Richardson also took off from Mason City , Iowa , and crashed , killing the rock ' n ' roll sensation and their pilot , Roger Peterson . Feb. 3 became know as " The Clarence Shepard Day Jr. the Music perish , " not a day whenCold Wartensions simmer [ reference : Mead ] .
6: 1963: Don’t Die on the Same Day as JFK
C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley had a few things in common . Both were well - known twentieth - hundred writers who had been educated at Oxford and lived in England at least for a time . Lewis was the writer of " The Chronicles of Narnia , " a series of seven classic children ’s novels that are still read widely today . Several of them have been made into popular film , including the 2005 " The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe . " He also drop a line numerous Bible for adult , on themes as diverse as science fiction , Christian apologetics and medieval lit [ source : Biography.com ] .
Meanwhile Aldous Huxley ’s 1932 novel " Brave New World , " set in the London of the time to come , depicted a dystopian club in which engineering and mind - altering drug suppressed objection and free will . He went on to write other books , screenplays and a assembling of essays called " The door of Perception . " Jim Morrison take up the championship for his rock chemical group The Doors [ beginning : Biography.com ] .
And here ’s one other matter Lewis and Huxley had in unwashed : Both died on the same solar day , Nov. 22 , 1963 , Lewis of nephritic failure and Huxley of cancer . That coincidence , couple with their literary accomplishment , might have gotten a wad of attention . But or else , their death were n’t even reported until days later , because of President John F. Kennedy’sassassinationin Dallas [ source : Garth ] .
In 1982 , a Boston College professorpublished a novelcalled " Between Heaven and Hell " which suppose the three man cope with in the hereafter .
5: 1977: Elvis Overshadows Space Aliens
A former Ohio State University electrical technology and uranology professor named Jerry Ehman , who was working as a volunteer at the university , glint at computer printouts from the " Big Ear . " The latter was a radio telescope that was scanning the cosmos in hopes of beak up communicating from anextraterrestrial civilization . Up to that degree , it had n’t found anything at all .
But to Ehman ’s shock , on Aug. 15 , 1977 , he see an remarkably strong sign . or else of the distinctive random numbers , there was a current of both letter and numbers telegraph a radio infection 30 times tawdry than the background bombilation of thick place . Ehman was so amazed he circled the codification and wrote the word " wow ! " next to the printout .
scientist searched in vain for the sign , but could n’t pick it up again . Even today , the " wow " codification remains unexplained [ source : Kawa , Kiger ] .
You ’d think that a find like that would have made the headline , or at least grace the covers of supermarket tabloid . Unfortunately for space buffs , it pass off the day before thedeath of medicine legend Elvis Presley[source : Adams ] . No one can compete with Elvis .
4: 1981: Royal Wedding Steals Headlines From Reagan Tax Cut
Ronald Reagan was elect president in 1980 , at least partly due to his hope that he ’d provoke the economic system by reduce too - highfederal taxes . After his startup , his Republican ally in Congress introduced legislation to make that hope a world , slashing individual taxation charge per unit by 25 pct and cutting levy en masse on businesses andoil producer .
Democratic opponents saw the tax cutting as a budget buster that would mostly profit the moneyed . But in a dexterous piece of political strategizing , the Republicans supervise to peel off enough support from conservative Southern Democrats to make impedance ineffectual , and popular leaders had to accept defeat . On July 30 , 1981 , the Reagan tax cut passed the U.S. Senate by a resounding 89 - 11 vote , and in the House , by 323 to 107 .
President Reagan issued a statement that the " first real revenue enhancement cut in near 20 geezerhood " had " remove one of the most important remaining challenge to our agenda for prosperity " [ source : Cowan ] .
While Reagan did make newspaper headline , the great unwashed preferred to follow another case unfold : The wedding of Britain ’s Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer attracted an estimated 750 million TV viewer worldwide [ source : Hill ] .
3: 2001: Afghan Assassination Trumped by Worst U.S. Terror Event
In a nation with a warrior custom , Ahmed Shah Masoud was a legend . As the leader of forces against the Soviet occupancy of Afghanistan in the 1980s , he made such a name for that he was show in " Rambo III . "
But after Masoud helped drive out the Soviets , Afghanistan fall into disorder and eventually was get over by an extremist movement , the infamous Taliban . Masoud helped start the resistance against thatterroristgroup , too .
Unfortunately , Masoud ’s ill fame and comfort with media coverage was exploit by his enemies . OnSept . 11 , 2001 , U.S. officials declare that Masoud has been assassinate in his camp by a self-annihilation bomber , who had posed as a television cameraman to get close to the rebel drawing card [ source : Wright and Watson ] .
usually a story of an antiterrorist loss leader being stamp out by a suicide hoagy who posed as a TV camera operator would have been bounteous news . But Masoud ’s murder happened the same day as the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York . So nothing else count in the news .
2: 2009: Michael Jackson Overshadows Farrah Fawcett
TheLos Angeles Timescalled her " a generation ’s favorite pinup . " But even if you were n’t a teen boy in the tardy 1970s with her sexy bathing suit poster on your bedroom paries , you make love all about Farrah Fawcett . As co - asterisk of " Charlie ’s Angels , " the hit telly series about a trio of beautiful private investigator , Fawcett was one of pop culture ’s most recognizable figures . Her striking physical beauty and trademark mane of feathery frost blonde hair made her a sex symbol .
But Fawcett also was a talented actress who earned three Emmy nominations . Her personation of a battered married woman in the sentiment - molest 1984 TV picture show " The Burning Bed " earned her award from critic [ source : Nelson ] .
After Fawcett was diagnosed with a rare form ofcancerin 2006 , her battle to survive the disease earned her even more admiration from the world . So it would be reasonable to require that her last on June 24 , 2009 , would have been big news — even though another TV star , Johnny Carson crony Ed McMahon , pass aside that same twenty-four hours .
But as luck would have it , both Fawcett and McMahon were overshadowed by an even more sensory demise — the sudden dying of " King of Pop"Michael Jacksonat age 50 [ generator : Van Hoven ] .
1: 2011: Soon-to-be Saint Can’t Compete With bin Laden’s Demise
On May 1 , 2011 , a monumental crowd ofRoman Catholicsfrom all over the earth swarm into Vatican City and cheered as then - Pope Benedict XVI personally announce his late forerunner , John Paul II , to be " sanctify . " Beatification , as that motion is called , is the pace that amount before official sainthood .
John Paul , the first Polish Bishop of Rome , had become a folk hero for his opponent to communism in his native land and for his travels to more res publica than any other Vicar of Christ .
His observance was a memorable one . The crowd was shown a ampule of John Paul II ’s line of descent , and Vatican officials unveiled a huge tapis portrait of the late pontiff , before calling in both English and Polish for believers to implore mutely . Benedict proclaimed that in heaven , the saints and backer were observe , too [ source : CNN ] .
But the event did n’t dominate the news that weekend . The following eventide , U. S. President Barack Obama herald that Navy SEALs had secretly slipped into Pakistan and kill al - Qaida leader Osama bin Laden , the humans behind the Sept. 11 attacks [ source : Politico ] .
Lots More Information
This grant make home with me , because I ’ve in reality seen it bump on a smaller , personal graduated table . I turned 20 on the day that Elvis Presley died — I was on a natal day road trip at the time , and it took me a while to cypher out why every place on the radio receiver seemed to be playing Elvis music . twelvemonth later , a diarist friend of mine author a strike family memoir and sold it to a major publishing house . It might even have become a well - seller , except that the discharge escort was just before the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 , which kept it from getting the attention it deserved .
