At 7:00pm on the 17th of July, 1981, more than 1,000 people were gathered in the atrium of the Hyatt Regency Kansas City Hotel for a tea dance, when a structural failure occurred. Two skywalks which crossed the lobby collapsed, crashing down onto the revellers below. The incident would cause the greatest loss of life from a structural collapse in American history, only ever to be superseded – 20 years later – by the destruction of New York City’s World Trade Centre.