On this day, April 5th, 1998 🌉, Japan opened the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge — the longest suspension bridge span ever built, stretching an astonishing 1,991 meters across the Akashi Strait. To put that in perspective, its main span alone is longer than the Golden Gate Bridge from end to end 🇯🇵. Engineers faced typhoons, earthquakes — including a massive 7.2 quake during construction that actually shifted the towers — yet the bridge stood. Connecting the city of Kobe to Awaji Island, it handles 23,000 vehicles a day and remains an enduring symbol of human ingenuity over nature ✨.

Other interesting facts that happened on this day:

• 1974: Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was published — written in a laundry room on a secondhand typewriter
• 1965: My Fair Lady won Best Picture at the 37th Academy Awards
• 1958: Canada detonated the largest non-nuclear explosion in history to destroy Ripple Rock, a hazard that had sunk 119 ships
• 1856: Booker T. Washington, educator and advisor to presidents, was born into slavery in Virginia
• 1088: The University of Bologna, the world’s oldest university still in operation, was founded in Italy