Learn more about history with this collection

The Easter Celebration

Different Easter traditions around the world

The significance of Easter eggs and bunnies in modern culture

The importance of the holiday in the Christian faith

Discover 44 similar ideas in

The Easter Celebration

It takes just

7 mins to read

Malcom McLean solves a problem

In 1937, during a routine delivery to the port in North Carolina for shipment, McLean had to stay behind until his cargo had been loaded onto the ship.
He sat for hours watching dozens of hands load thousands of packages onto the ship. It was a diverse assortment of barrels, boxes, bags, crates, and drums. (A typical ship contained as many as 200,000 individual pieces of cargo and the time it took to load and unload the cargo often equaled the time that the vessel needed to sail between ports.)
He realized the waste of time and money and wondered about a better alternative.
He initially thought to load entire trucks onboard a ship but realized that it would waste cargo space.
He modified his idea, so only the containers were loaded onto the ship, not the trucks' chassis. The containers were also designed to stack on top of one another.

194 reads

MORE IDEAS ON THIS

In 1956, Malcom McLean secured a bank loan for $22 million. He bought two WWII tanker ships and converted them to carry his containers. Later that year, one of his ships was loaded with 58 containers and sailed from New Jersey to Houston.

231 reads

Malcolm McLean was born in November 1913 in Maxton, North Carolina.
He graduated from high school in 1935 and began working as a driver for his sibling's trucking company.

234 reads