Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge crosses a narrow strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State. The original 1940 span became one of the most famous failures in engineering history when wind set its slender deck oscillating until it twisted apart and fell into the sound - footage studied by students ever since under the nickname "Galloping Gertie."

A sturdier replacement opened in 1950, and a parallel twin span was added in 2007 to carry the growing traffic, so that today two suspension bridges run side by side across the narrows. The collapse reshaped how engineers account for wind and aerodynamics in long-span bridges.

• Puget Sound
  The deep glacial inlet of western Washington related
• Washington
  The Evergreen State, the wet and dry sides of the Cascades related