This week marks the 50th anniversary of the infamous exploding whale in Oregon. On November 12th, 1970, Oregon Highway Division officials used boxes of powerful explosives to get rid of a whale carcass that had washed up on shore near Florence, about three hours south of Portland. Video of the news coverage has been seen over 350,000,000 times in recent years.
The explosion sent bits of blubber into the air and scattered the whale carcass over a quarter of a mile away. The crowd which had gathered to watch the explosion had to scatter for safety as large pieces of whale flesh fell from the sky. One piece of blubber landed on and crushed the top of a brand new car parked nearby. The owner of that car told ABC 7 in 2018 that there was real irony involved, since the dealership where he bought the car used the slogan "a whale of a deal."