MAERSK /SEA-LAND
ON 26 APRIL 1956 the SS Ideal-X, a converted World War Two oil tanker, left Newark, New Jersey, bound for Houston, Texas, carrying 58 pre-packed ‘trailer vans’: corrugated steel boxes measuring 8ft by 8ft by 35ft and designed to fit on a flatbed truck.
As it departed, an official of the International Longshoremen’s Association was asked what he thought of the new innovation, and said: ‘I’d like to sink that son of a bitch!’ And he would not have been short of colleagues ready to lend a helping hand. Not only would thousands of longshoremen’s jobs soon disappear, but many of the city docks where they worked would also close as container ports moved to locations with vastly more space. The shipping container might have been little more than a large steel box, but it is often cited as the most significant invention of the modern era, with a global impact on trade, centres of production, and economies.