Mad Men Reaches New Level of Scary Verisimilitude

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By Matt Haber

August 4, 2008 | 2:56 p.m

Just how historically accurate is AMC's critically acclaimed series Mad Men? Very.

In June, The New York Times Magazine's Alex Witchell called the show's art direction "almost fetishistically accurate." New York Magazine's Logan Hill actually went so far as to examine the books behind one character's desk on the magazine's Vulture blog.

But it's not just the sets that are period perfect. Last night's episode featured a plot point (spoiler alert?) about an American Airlines crash in Jamaica Bay. Here's how The New York Times's Peter Kihss described that crash, on March 1, 1962, in the March 2nd edition of the paper:

Nintety-five persons were killed yesterday in a jet airliner crash in Jamaica Bay. It was the highest toll involving a single commercial airplane in the nation's history.

The American Airlines Boeing 707 crashed just an hour before the city started a spectacular welcome to Lieut. Col. John H. Glenn Jr.

The four-engine aircraft had just taken off for Los Angeles from New York International Airport at 10L07 A.M. It was making a turn three miles southwest of the field at Idlewild, Queens, when it suddenly went nose down from a height of 500 to 800 feet.

According to The Times, the next plane scheduled to take off was a Mohawk.