On September 15, 1830, British MP William Huskisson attended the grand opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Visitors boarded the Northumbrian, which had stopped to take on water. Against instructions, the passengers disembarked to hobnob. Seeing the Duke of Wellington, Huskisson walked across the adjacent line to speak to him just as another train came barreling down the line. Huskisson stumbled and fell beneath the wheels of the oncoming train. He became the world's first railroad passenger fatality.
