No doubt about it, the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 was bad. Millions of gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf Coast. It was the largest oil spill disaster since the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. The upside is both of those disasters (and many others like it) could have been worse if not for the lessons learned early in 1967 when the British Supertanker Torrey Canyon hit a reef off the southern coast of England and began leaking oil.

On this day, Mach 18, 1967, the Torrey Canyon, taking an unauthorized shortcut through dangerous waters, struck a reef which opened up its hull. Somewhere near 100,000 gallons of crude oil began leaking out into the sea, and the British were wholly unprepared to deal with it.

Looking back on it through the prism of modern oil spill-containment methods, the British reactions were almost absurdly laughable. The first idea that gained traction was bombing the vessel in an attempt to set it ablaze and burn off the oil. Eight fighters were scrambled, dropping over a single day 62,000 lbs of bombs, 5,200 gallons of petrol, 11 rockets and large quantities of napalm onto the ship. The Torrey Canyon didn’t sink, but it did catch fire — which the high tide promptly put out. The spilled oil was cleaned with a special chemical detergent — which turned out to be more toxic to marine life than the oil itself. It was a good lesson for the world on what not to do during an oil spill disaster.