The Sky Projector Comes to Town
- We're Glad it Wasn't the Death Ray -
December 14, 1935

On December 14, 1935 at 5:30 p.m., a $60,000 Sky Projector ("the only apparatus of its kind in the world" according to local publications) shot images of Santa Claus at the North Pole as well as Christmas text greetings (called "Sky Grams") onto the clouds from the front of the D.H. Holmes building on Canal Street.  Its 400,000,000 candle-power beam was brought to the city courtesy of Holmes in conjunction with their Christmas adverstising campaign.  The demonstration would continue nightly from 5:30 to !0:00 until Christmas Day.  If the clouds failed to show, the Sky Projector would cast its beam on nearby buildings. Made from a powerful arc lamp, focusing lens and a plane mirror the Sky Projector would project an image high into the sky without the need for a screen to project the image onto.

MV Bright Field was a bulk cargo ship which allided with the Riverwalk Marketplace shopping complex in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the afternoon of Saturday, December 14, 1996, after losing engine power. The vessel was fully loaded with grain at the time of the incident. The United States Coast Guard investigated the incident and published its findings on December 8, 1997, citing the cause of the engine failure as a poorly maintained oil filter. A secondary but contributory cause was determined as a main-engine automation system which produced warnings and alarms that were not consistently relayed to the ship's Master. The National Transportation Safety Board published its final report on January 13, 1998, which concurred with the Coast Guard's determinations and appear to charge the ship's operating company with the responsibility for the casualty.  The incident resulted in no deaths, but 66 persons were injured. Physical damage to the Bright Field was calculated at $1,857,952. Damage to the Riverwalk, including the pier, condominium properties, shops and hotel, totaled an estimated $15 million.  From wikipedia.