1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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Early on a Sunday morning 36 years ago, a 19-ton Mercedes-Benz truck punched through a five-foot high concertina wire fence and into a four-story barracks housing Marines at the Beirut International Airport. The driver of Iranian descent set off an estimated 21,000 pounds of TNT which first lifted the structure off the ground and then collapsed into a mass of concrete rubble. When the dust had settled, 220 Marines with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines – Battalion Landing Team had perished along with 21 other service members, marking the deadliest day for the Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in Feb., 1945. The Marines in Beirut were part of a multinational peacekeeping force that was trying to broker a truce between warring Christian and Muslim Lebanese factions. Four months after the bombing, American forces left Lebanon without retaliating.
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