The Roseburg blast of 1959, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, the famous dead whale. As we celebrate July 4, here is a look back at memorable explosions in Oregon. We don't get to claim the eruption of Mount St. Helens, across the river in Washington state, and we'll leave off Oregon's own volcanoes and meteor strikes. We won't even count the Bend brewery that had to recall two popular lines of beer in 2014 for fear they might explode. But here is a list of memorable explosions that did make headlines in Oregon.

The famous exploding whale

George Thornton, the Oregon Department of Transportation highway engineer who won the job of removing a massive beached whale near Florence in November 1970, will forever be known as the man who blew up eight tons of whale with a half-ton of dynamite, thereby creating an Oregon legend that was often thought a myth.

It all started on Nov. 9, 1970, when a 45-foot whale (initially thought to be a gray whale, but later identified as a sperm whale) washed ashore a mile south of the Siuslaw River.

The carcass drew curious onlookers until about the third day, when it began to decay and emit a rancid odor.

Thornton, then an ODOT district manager, got the job of devising a plan to remove the whale.

He would later complain that it fell to him because his colleagues had planned to go deer hunting -- "conveniently," he said in a newsletter.

"To be fair, they had plans to go, but this thing made them all the more anxious to go," said Thornton, who died in 2013.

ODOT officials struggled with what to do with the whale. Rendering plants said no thanks. Burying was iffy because the waves would likely have just uncovered the carcass. And it was too big to burn.

So the plan was hatched: Blow it up, scatter it to the wind, and let the crabs and seagulls clean up the mess. So Thornton and his crew packed 20 cases of dynamite around the leeward side of the whale, thinking most of it would blow into the water. At 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, the plunger was pushed.

The whale blew up, all right, but the 1,000-yard safety zone wasn't quite large enough. Whale blubber and whale parts fell from the sky, smashing into cars and people.

No one was hurt, but pretty much everyone was wearing whale bits and pieces.

Thornton's legacy was sealed on film by a KATU crew that included reporter Paul Linnman.

"That doggone thing, the BBC said it is the sixth most-watched TV news report ever," Linnman said.

It's also one of the most-watched videos on YouTube.

During his interview with Linnman, Thornton said he was confident it would work, "but we're not sure just how much explosives it will take to disintegrate this thing so the scavengers -- seagulls and crabs and whatnot -- can clean it up."

Linnman said TV news was so serious at the time that he decided to have some fun with the story. After it blew, Linnman said the explosion "blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds."

ODOT, it's safe to say, never blew up another whale. The current protocol is to bury a whale or have it removed. In 1979, when 41 whales beached themselves near Florence, chain saws were used to cut them up and they were then buried.

The news report, Linnman said, made the national rounds, and then the story took off as a pop-culture phenomenon when humorist Dave Barry wrote a column in May 1990 about that day.

Linnman wrote a book on the subject, "The Exploding Whale and Other Remarkable Stories From the Evening News," in 2003. There's even an exploding whale website.

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The Roseburg Blast of 1959

Above: Downtown Roseburg lies in ruin, virtually wiped off the map on Aug. 7, 1959.

In Roseburg, this moment -- 14 minutes after 1 in the morning of Aug. 7, 1959, a Friday -- is known simply as the Blast, one of the worst disasters in Oregon history.

The blast killed 14 people, hurt 125 and destroyed or seriously damaged more than 100 buildings, including a school and a Coca-Cola bottling plant, apartments and homes. The percussion tossed people from their beds, and windows burst nine miles away. Some people saw a mushroom cloud that clear summer night and thought the Russians had attacked. Read Brent Walth's 50th anniversary coverage of the tragedy.

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Trojan Nuclear Power Plant

Under dappled skies, the Trojan Nuclear Plant's 499-foot cooling tower flashed with explosives in May 2006, let off a deep farewell kaboom and collapsed. At the time, the mammoth structure was the tallest of its kind to be imploded, either in the United States or abroad.

A huge cloud of pulverized concrete settled within minutes, leveling one of the Northwest's most visible manmade landmarks and leaving only memories of Oregon's brief and troubled experience with nuclear power generation. The implosion lasted about nine seconds.

Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc., which imploded the tower, called the results "textbook."

The tower, built in 1976, was part of Portland General Electric's only nuclear power plant. It permanently closed in 1993 after the facility's steam generators developed problems too costly to repair. The shutdown decision came amid rising public opposition to nuclear power in the Northwest. The tower contained no radioactive material.

Hundreds of former workers at the Trojan plant -- the nuclear facility employed 1,200 people in its heyday -- watched the implosion from nearby Kalama, Washington, across the Columbia River from the cooling tower.

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Bruce Ely, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Until its goodbye, the tower could be seen for miles, rising from the banks of the Columbia River northwest of Portland near Rainier.

It was a brute by demolition standards. Built to withstand earthquakes and the constant pounding of river winds, it contained 41,000 tons of concrete and 3,000 tons of steel, with walls up to nearly 4 feet thick toward the base. But 2,792 pounds of dynamite strategically placed in the support legs and in the concrete veil at the 100-foot and 200-foot levels gave the tower no option but surrender.

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The Corbett Building in downtown Portland

In May 1988, 10,000 people gathered in downtown Portland to watch as the 81-year-old Corbett Building shuddered and caved in on itself in a cloud of dust.

In less than five seconds, the 10-story building at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Morrison Street collapsed like a giant cardboard box into a dusty-gray pile of concrete and twisted metal 30 feet high.

The building was demolished to make way for what is now Pioneer Place.

It was the first time the implosion method of demolition was used in Portland. Officials said there were no injuries and, except for one broken window, no damage to nearby buildings.

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When demolition experts pressed the button on the blasting machine, a sound like someone beating wildly on a giant bass drum came from the building and the structure disappeared in a cloud of dust. The collapse began in the southeast corner of the building where explosive charges kicked out the exposed columns in the basement and the first three floors. Then the Fifth Avenue wall fell eastward and the Morrison Street wall fell southward.

Hours before the blast, workers spotted a man climbing the fence and tossing something into the big hole next to the building. Workers spotted a dead boa constrictor. At first the man denied throwing the snake in the hole but he later admitted it to police.

Under questioning, he reluctantly conceded the snake was his pet and he wanted to give it a memorable burial. The boa still was in the hole when tons of rubble crashed down upon it a few hours later.

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Urine sample in microwave

Last year, in a Beaverton 7-Eleven, workers were evacuated and police called after an explosion in the store microwave.

After police arrived at the 4700 S.W. Murray Road store, they called out the explosives unit to investigate a "suspicious object." That turned out to be a urine sample wrapped in a hand warmer.

"It appears that whoever was on his/her way to do a drug test did not feel that it was warm enough, so they decided to microwave it at 7-Eleven," Beaverton police spokesperson Mike Rowe said in a release. "The chemical makeup of the hand warmer did not agree with the microwave and exploded."

A woman was arrested after trying to heat a urine sample in a store near Denver earlier this year.

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Oregon Metallurgical plant

In 1977, eight people were injured when a unit of Oregon Metallurgical Corp. in Albany exploded. Witnesses reported windows rattling from the blast over more than a mile and flames and smoke rose 200 feet into the air above the rare metals plant. Molten magnesium was being withdrawn from a furnace and was the likely culprit. The fire was contained in the titanium unit.

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World War II era tank

Two men died after an explosion inside a World War II-era tank at a shooting range near Bend. The men were attempting to fire a round from the armored tank destroyer's cannon when the round exploded.

The explosion happened inside a 1944 Buick "Hellcat" M18 tank destroyer about 25 miles east of Bend.

One of the man had purchased the tank in 1999 for $60,000. A film crew was shooting at the time of the explosion to document the firing the weapon's cannon for a promotional video to be used by the tank's owner.

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New Carissa

On Feb. 4, 1999, the New Carissa ran aground along the Oregon Coast, just south of Coos Bay. The incident proved to be one of the worst environmental disasters in Oregon history. While there was no loss of human life, the recovery and cleanup were long, expensive and dramatic.

The New Carissa's 36-day odyssey bewildered Oregonians for weeks: firebombing by napalm, an elaborate failure to pump off oil, the sinking by a U.S. Navy torpedo. Even after the torpedo exploded into the ship, parts of the carrier remained on the beach until 2008.

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International Paper in Gardiner

Roughly eight seconds after the first booms, all that was left of the former International Paper mill was a pile of rubble and a dust cloud that hung in the air for an hour. Some 90 pounds of explosives brought down the 4,000-ton mill structure.

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Balloon bomb from Japan

In 1945, the Rev. Archie Mitchell, his wife, Elyse, and five young members of a Sunday school class ventured out for a picnic near the southern Oregon town of Bly.

At a wooded area along Leonard Creek, about 13 miles northeast of town, Mitchell let his wife and the kids -- between 11 and 14 years old -- out of the car and then drove a short distance to park.

A few moments later, Mitchell heard someone shout that they had found something. He later gave this version of what happened next, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia:

"As I got out of the car to bring the lunch, the others were not far away and called to me they had found something that looked like a balloon," Mitchell said. "I heard of Japanese balloons so I shouted a warning not to touch it. But just then there was a big explosion."

The powerful blast created a crater a foot deep and 3 feet wide.

"I ran up there -- and they were all dead," Mitchell said.

It also was the last of several incidents during the war in which the Japanese military "attacked" Oregon -- though it was the only one that resulted in casualties. In fact, the blast was responsible for the only enemy-inflicted casualties on the U.S. mainland during World War II.

In addition to his wife, who was pregnant, the victims were Dick Patzke, 14; Jay Gifford, 13; Edward Engen, 13; Joan Patzke, 13; and Sherman Shoemaker, 11.

The explosion -- on Saturday, May 5, 1945 -- came just two days before Germany surrendered, ending World War II in Europe, and just three months before Japan would surrender.

The balloon bombs were part of an effort by the Japanese military to set forest fires and create panic along the West Coast of the United States during the war. The idea was apparently hatched in retaliation for the bombing raids on Japan in 1942 by 16 B-25s led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle.

As many as 9,000 balloon bombs were launched and at least 285 reports of them reaching the United States were collected.

The Bly incident marked one of at least 40 sightings of balloon bombs or balloon bomb fragments in Oregon between November 1944 and July 1945. Other sightings came from all across the state, from Eugene to Ontario and from Estacada to Medford.

One of the most-significant sightings took place in Echo, near Stanfield in northeast Oregon, where an intact balloon bomb was found. It was later placed on display at the Smithsonian Institute.

The explosion near Bly came a few years after three more direct attacks on Oregon by the Japanese military. All of those were the work of a Japanese submarine known as I-25.

On June 21, 1942, I-25 surfaced off the north coast of Oregon and fired 17 rounds from its deck gun at Fort Stevens. No one was injured, and the fort commander chose not to fire back, fearing muzzle flashes would give away gun positions.

The only damage was to the fort's baseball field.

Two more I-25 attacks came the following September. The submarine was capable of carrying a folding floatplane in a water-tight hangar. That plane, piloted by Nobuo Fujita, at least twice dropped incendiary bombs along the southern Oregon coast in an effort to start forest fires. But only one blaze was set, and it was quickly put out.

The balloon bombs seemed to have a greater impact. Made of paper, they were inflated with hydrogen and released into the air currents that move eastward from Japan at about 30,000 feet. They carried a variety of bombs, and their existence was kept quiet for months. In fact, when the balloon bomb deaths were reported in the Klamath Falls Herald & News, the story said the blast was of "unknown origin." But American fighter planes regularly patrolled coastal areas in an effort to shoot down as many as possible.

In the years after the Bly incident, a monument was built at the site and dedicated by Gov. Douglas McKay on Aug. 20, 1950.

After that, the balloon bombs began to fade into history. However, most were never accounted for, which leads to another matter: Some may still be out there.

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Allan J. de Lay/The Oregonian

Fireworks warehouse in 1958

A 4-year-old girl, Mary Beth Howe, described in July 1958 news accounts as deaf and mute, died when fireworks company warehouse next door exploded. The explosion at Signal Fireworks and Specialty, near Southeast 84th and Powell Boulevard, caused havoc for blocks around.

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Allan J. de Lay/The Oregonian

Above: Two policemen survey extensive damage of devastating blast at Signal Fireworks & Specialty Co. The parents and sister of the dead girl managed to escape their nearby home without serious injuries.

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Dale Swanson

NE Portland fireworks warehouse

Firefighters pour water to warehouse at 5210 N.E. Columbia Blvd. after an explosion set off three alarm fire.

A fireworks warehouse was again the culprit in 1982, when a blast injured two men working behind the building in Northeast Portland. The explosion shattered windows in houses for blocks. About 3,000 pounds of fireworks were inside along with oil drums, roofing material and other combustibles.

Fireworks were again at the center of things in 1988, when a planned show for the Fourth of July went awry. As The Oregonian reported:

While the skybursts were merely thrilling for most, those at Oaks Park received perhaps more than they bargained for when an unscheduled explosion took place.

There, as the show approached its grand finale, a mortar shell exploded prematurely at about 10:30 p.m., according to Norma Willison, manager of the skating rink at the park. That caused a hot spot in the grass that, in turn, caught on fire the devices to be used in the grand finale.

That display then went off in one huge explosion.

Spectators on the west bank of the Willamette River, across from the park, saw an orange cloud rise out of a series of explosions in the park. They let out gasps of astonishment as an orange cloud boiled up and other fireworks shot indiscriminately into the sky.

Shortly after the explosion, brush and weeds along the river bank ignited and for a time, flames appeared to crawl up the river bank toward onlookers.

But within minutes, a Portland Fire Bureau fireboat arrived and sent streams of water into the park, quickly extinguishing the spot fires.

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-- Therese Bottomly, The Oregonian/OregonLive