WordPlay™ Shakespeare

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Starlings, Shakespeare, and an Air Crash

Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_375_fuselage

One of the sadder Shakespeare related stories from recent history. Shakespeare (indirectly) caused an air crash in 1960. A plane taking off from Logan Airport in Boston was brought down by a flock of starlings. The Shakespeare connection? Starlings are not native to the US, but were brought over by Shakespeare fanatic Eugene Schieffelin in 1860, so that Central Park would be stocked by every bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s works. For more on the story, read a New York Times archive story, and a wikipedia entry on the events surrounding the actual crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 375.