On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese forces entered Saigon while U.S. government forces were evacuated.

Dutch photographer Hubert van Es, working for UPI, captured a defining image of that distinct point in the conflict, as Americans crowded the roof of this building to evacuate by helicopter.

As with the city's name (Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City), the street name was also changed to Lý Tá»± Trọng Street, in honor of a 17-year-old communist executed by the French. Today, the building still stands, but the roof is off-limits.

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In the ensuing months, the media was awash with images of oil-covered wildlife, which briefly galvanized the public against environmental exploitation during the Exxon Valdez crisis.

This public relations mistake was later avoided in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by using copious amounts carcinogenic dispersants before the oil could reach shore.

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On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. In the next few days, the damaged vessel spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil into the sea and onto 1,300 miles of coastline. At the time, it was considered to be one of the most devastating corporate-caused oil spills ever.

The Valdez suffered from a number of technical failures (single-walled hull for the tanker, failed radar) and human errors prior to the accident. This included (but not limited to) the understaff and overwork of an exhausted sea crew- a practice that is still prevalent in the shipping industry today.

To combat the accumulation of crude oil on the seashore, a combination of high-pressure hoses and hot water were initially used, which cooked the microorganisms (plankton) that served as the base of the food chain in the ecosystem.

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The exterior of Vincent Freeman's house in the 1997 film Gattaca is the CLA Building on the Cal Poly Pomona campus.

The building was designed by Antoine Predock in the Futurist style and completed in 1993. Due to recent structural flaws surfacing, as well as the placement of the building on an active fault line, the building is scheduled for demolition.

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This solar thermal plant uses parabolic troughs to generate heat, then steam, then power.

It was featured in the 1997 film Gattaca when Uma Therman and Ethan Hawke have a wildly romantic night out together and end up at a 150-megawatt solar power plant that can generate about 354 megawatts at peak output. Hot stuff.

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