On this day in US history, a steamboat named Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, killing 1,700 passengers on April 17, 1865. Over 2,300 total passengers boarded the ship in Vicksburg, but only 600 people survived what would go down as the worst maritime disaster in US history. An independent inquiry would determine that the cause of the explosion was due to not having enough water in the boiler.
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