Exxon Valdez
At 9 p.m. on the night of 23 March 1989, the Exxon Valdez began to sail south from Valdez in Alaska.
There was ice in the sea, so the caption told the sailors to sail to one side.
He told them to sail straight on in the usually way when they were past the ice.
But, for some reason, they didn't do this, and just after midnight theexxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef.
Disaster! Forty million litres of oil came out of the Exxon Valdez. That is about enough to fill 125 twenty- five-metre swimming pools.
Over the next eight weeks the oil went along the coast, and in the end it arrived at the village of Chignik - 740 kilometres from Bligh Reef.
But because there are so many little islands in this part of Alaska, there was oil on 2,240 Kilometres of coast.