August 29

Has everyone been told at one time or another that, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again? There is a certain amount of wisdom in that phrase. The Quebec Bridge crosses the Saint Lawrence Seaway at two points in Canada. It is the longest cantilever bridge in the world. It had a rather difficult birth however. In the midst of construction on the 29th in 1907, something went terribly wrong and the bridge collapsed. Undeterred, the engineers went back to the drawing board and tried it again. On September 11, 1916, the second attempt failed when the bridge again collapsed into the seaway and killed 11 workers. The bridge was not put up and did not stay up until December 3, 1919.