During the time the World Trade Center was built, the largest commercial plane was a Boeing 707. Since the building designs were catered to withstand impacts from planes such as these, the impact of the Boeing 767’s had the potential to have devastating effects. The design of the World Trade Center Towers was unique in that they attained their vertical strength from columns located around the perimeter of the building instead of throughout. This allowed the architects to design large open spaces that were not interfered with unwieldy columns. However, this proved to be a disadvantage when the airlines hit the buildings because many of these columns were demolished, greatly weakening the structure.

Another unanticipated characteristic of the impact was that the two airliners still had nearly full tanks of fuel. With 90,000 litres of jet fuel combusting within the buildings, the fires became intensely hot. The steel structure began to soften at 425°C, and was at half strength at about 650 C. In some areas, the fire may have reached temperatures of almost 1000°C. Although the columns became badly distorted, the fire in itself was not enough to bring the buildings down.

Skyscrapers are designed to withstand one major column loss. However, when dozens of columns are demolished, adjacent members of the structure lose their vertical strength and fall like a row of dominoes. The floors that were most heavily impacted by the plane crash gave way first. This made the outer box columns circumscribing the buildings bend outward causing the floors above to come crashing down. The sturdy floors below could not hold the 45,000-tonne weight of the above ten floors. With no lateral support, the remaining columns also collapsed with the rest of the building.

The World Trade Center buildings hit the ground at a crushing 200 kilometres an hour. It took a mere 10 seconds for each building to fall to the ground. Each 500,000-tonne monster held so much inertia that there was no other direction to fall but straight down. 2,974 people were killed (excluding the 19 hijackers) not as a result of poor building design, but merely an unfortunate chain of events.

The first car in Australia was the FX Holden. It was built in 1948 and about 10 were made each day. By 1951 100 cars were manufactured each day. In 1953 Australia’s second car was made. It was called the FJ Holden and cost £1074. By 1955 there was about 1 855 000 car in Australia. To accommodate the expansion house began to be built with garages and carports and shopping areas had there parking areas fitted for cars instead of horses. By the end of the decade cars were a part of everyday life.

At the beginning of the decade most planes were propeller powered and the cabins were un-pressurized. This meant plane trips were bumpy and noisy. Planes often had to refuel and could not fly in bad weather. By the end of the decade QANTAS purchased some Boeing 707 jets. This allowed planes to fly for long distances over bad weather and with more passengers.

The first diesel locomotive was released in Australia in 1950. At the time most people still traveled by steam train. In Sydney and Melbourne there were electric trains but these trains didn’t travel long distances. The diesel train allowed a smoother ride and less wear and tear was done on the tracks as the train didn’t rock as much. At the time almost all long distance journeys were by train.

In 1950 nine out of ten immigrants came by sea. Sea travel was much different in the 1950s then it is today. Ships were not holidays; they were just a means of travel. Most of the time on the ships was spend socializing as there weren’t many activities. By the end of the decade this started to change as plane travel was more common and ships became more expensive.