Flashback in maritime history: EXXON VALDEZ oil spill 24 Mar 1989 (video)

not the largest in US history, was clearly the most important and most expensive ship-source spill. It engendered much litigation.

Storyline:

One of the worst oil spills in U.S. territory begins when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska. An estimated 1.26 million barrels (37,000 tonnes) of oil eventually spilled into the water. Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands