On This Day: Saboteurs destroy $540M (2023 $) of munitions in massive explosion - July 30, 1916

[SledDriver]

2. Crazy that I'd never heard about the Black Tom explosion until recently

I don't remember ever learning about it in history classes in school
I don't remember ever seeing a documentary about it
I've been to the Statue of Liberty a number of times and I don't recall any mention of it

As a kid I remember being fascinated with the statue and knew that people used to be able to go up into the torch. I had a book with old-timey pictures of people on the torch dressed in turn of the century garb. As a kid we went to the statue and climbed up into the crown, but not the torch. I was told the torch wasn't safe, was too hard to climb up a narrow ladder to, but not because the arm holding it was damaged in a terrorist attack.