Why is it that -- for those of a certain age anyway -- the Hindenburg disaster, in which 36 of the majestic airship's 97 passengers and crew died, still resonates, but yesterday's catastrophic cyclone in Myanmar (the nation formerly known as Burma) hardly registers?

The latest figures from Myanmar say as many as 22,000 people may have died.

On May 6, 1937, 71 years ago today, the hydrogen-filled dirigible Hindenburg was lazily drifting into its mooring at the Naval air station in Lakehurst, N.J., when it suddenly burst into flames and crashed.

The Hindenburg was the pride and joy of the aggressive Nazi regime in Germany, a symbol of the "new order" that was soon to engulf all of Europe and find itself less than a decade later in the midst of fiery destruction. It was, in many ways, the "Titanic" of the air.

Symbolism aside, the Hindenburg was simply beautiful, one of those triumphs of design (like the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pan Am Clipper) that characterized the otherwise drab and desperate Thirties.

But it was also, spectacularly, a media event, captured memorably on film and immortalized by the emotion-choked live radio broadcast by reporter Herb Morrison (later famously satirized by WKRP's Les Nessman).