Ute driver calls on special training as he plunges 45 metres into water
After being hit by a freighter, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in the south-eastern US collapsed on May 9, 1980, killing 35 people as their vehicles plunged 45 metres into the Tampa Bay.
The sole survivor was ute driver Wesley MacIntire whose vehicle hit the giant ship and ricocheted off and sank.
The former US Navy diver called on all his military training as his vehicle quickly filled with water on the muddy bottom of the shipping channel.
It took MacIntire two agonising minutes to force open the bent driver's seat door, squeeze himself out and swim to the surface.
A few minutes later, he was pulled out of the water by a rescue boat. Following his ordeal he suffered only minor injuries.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge was rebuilt and opened in 1987. Its design included extra protection for the structure's giant pillars in case they were hit by a ship.
The first Australian parliament with Edmund Barton as Prime Minister, shown here, was opened in Melbourne by the Duke of Cornwall and York, on May 9, 1901.
The ceremony followed national elections and the founding of the Commonwealth of Australia on January 1, 1901.
Barton headed a coalition government composed of his own Protectionist Party which received support from the Labor party.
During World War II, on May 9, 1941, sailors from a British warship captured the German submarine U-110 which was carrying a top secret coding machine.
When the boarding party from the destroyer HMS Bulldog entered the hatches of the sinking Nazi submarine, they had no idea they'd be helping to win the war.
The famous Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, made its world premiere in San Francisco on May 9, 1958.
The psychological thriller about a retired US detective suffering from acrophobia was considered one of director Hitchcock's best films.
On May 9, 1671, the Anglo-Irish adventurer Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal the British monarchy's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
Blood and his co-conspirators spent weeks befriending the keeper of the jewels before stabbing him and stealing the jewels.
But the wounded man was able to raise the alarm and Blood and his gang were arrested by guards as they attempted to flee the tower.
The US unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.7 per cent on May 9, 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sharp increase came as state governments ordered millions of workers, students and shoppers to stay home as a precaution against spreading the virus.
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