The deadliest school fire in American history took place on - of all days - Ash Wednesday, March 8th, 1908, in the Cleveland suburb of Collinwood just after first period ended. Within a half hour, 172 students and three adults would be dead, or close to it. Videos: Cleveland Public Library: Collinwood school fire Articles and books: The Collinwood Tragedy: The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History, by James Jessen Badal The neighborhood never forgets Collinwood school fire: 100 years later, an angel still kneels over the children REMEMBERING THE LAKEVIEW SCHOOL FIRE (ALSO KNOWN AS COLLINWOOD SCHOOL FIRE)

Jennifer stops rewatching the movie long enough to review the movie. Spoilers ahead!

You'd think if your plane crashed fifty meters from the end of the runway, you'd be saved. You'd be wrong. Videos: Disaster Breakdown: Locked into Disaster Articles and books: The Lever of Death: The crash of Dan-Air flight 0034 Department of Trade report on the accident

Jennifer talks about "Society of the Snow," the award-nominated adaptation of the Pablo Vierci book about the survival story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. "Society of the Snow" comes out in select theaters on December 22nd and on Netflix on January 4th. (No, Jennifer has not seen it yet. Although dear God, does she want to.)

On one February morning in 1997, a pair of men dressed in dark clothes entered a North Hollywood bank. What followed would be one of the most frightening things many Americans had ever watched live on TV up to that point. Videos: Zero Hour: The North Hollywood Shootout North Hollywood Bank Shootout_February 28, 1997 Articles and books:  20 years ago, gunbattle terrorized North Hollywood – and shocked America Chilling portrait of robber emerges Jury Unsure If Cops Let Shooter Die Police Kill 2 Bank Robbery Suspects in a Wild Gun Battle Children Offer to Drop Suit in Robber’s Death 20 years ago, a dramatic North Hollywood shootout changed the course of the LAPD and policing at large How the infamous North Hollywood shootout unfolded 20 years ago The LAPD use of force report for the North Hollywood shootout A Painful Anniversary of Shootout

On one February morning in 1997, a pair of men dressed in dark clothes entered a North Hollywood bank. What followed would be one of the most frightening things many Americans had ever watched live on TV up to that point. Videos: Zero Hour: The North Hollywood Shootout North Hollywood Bank Shootout_February 28, 1997 Articles and books:  20 years ago, gunbattle terrorized North Hollywood – and shocked America Chilling portrait of robber emerges Jury Unsure If Cops Let Shooter Die Police Kill 2 Bank Robbery Suspects in a Wild Gun Battle Children Offer to Drop Suit in Robber’s Death 20 years ago, a dramatic North Hollywood shootout changed the course of the LAPD and policing at large How the infamous North Hollywood shootout unfolded 20 years ago The LAPD use of force report for the North Hollywood shootout A Painful Anniversary of Shootout

It was just supposed to be a great night out seeing one of the best rock bands in the world. It turned out to be anything but. Videos: What Really Happened During The Who Concert Disaster? We Explain The Who: The Night that Changed Rock Articles and books: Crowd surge at a Who concert killed 11 people in 1979: ‘It was so strong, it just tore us apart’ The Who concert 40 years later: Survivors and victims' families relive tragic night in Cincinnati They Survived the Who Concert from ‘Hell.’ Now, They Finally Have Closure Lawsuits settled in concert tragedy

We all heard the news four years ago about a group of foolish tourists who made the mistake of visiting an active volcano and died as a result. Or at least, that's how the stories made them sound. Videos: The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari (Netflix) Sky News Australia airs Krystal Browitt video of tour guide warning Trapped in the Volcano Articles and books: Eruption of Whakaari (White Island) kills ten people: September 10th, 1914 This is the family that owns the Whakaari volcanic Island The December 2019 hydrothermal explosion at White Island (Whakaari), New Zealand, and its lessons for Yellowstone White Island volcano: what we know about the victims White Island volcano eruption: Whakaari Management found guilty of ‘astonishing’ safety failures Why the New Zealand volcano eruption caught the world by surprise Insights into the 9 December 2019 eruption of Whakaari/White Island from analysis of TROPOMI SO2 imagery White Island volcano: NZ officials charge 13 parties over tragedy Geonet Volcanic Alert Levels

It's the first night of winter on a windy night in Scotland when a loud noise broke the quiet over a small village. What followed was a fiery nightmare caused by the cruel intentions of others. Videos: Air Crash Investigations: Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie Bombing: Smithsonian special on Paramount+ Articles and books: AAIB report on Pan Am Flight 103 Skygods, by Robert Gandt Colonel Gaddafi 'ordered Lockerbie bombing' Anger at Lockerbie bomber welcome Pan Am Jet Crashes in Scotland, Killing 270 Libya Admits Culpability In Crash of Pan Am Plane Lockerbie and the worst Christmas imaginable New Charges in Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing Lockerbie bombing suspect is now in US custody Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist Suspect in Custody for 1988 Bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland Syracuse University Remembrance Week Schedule 2023

It's the first night of winter on a windy night in Scotland when a loud noise broke the quiet over a small village. What followed was a fiery nightmare caused by the cruel intentions of others.  Videos: Air Crash Investigations: Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie Bombing: Smithsonian special on Paramount+ Articles and videos: AAIB report on Pan Am Flight 103 Skygods, by Robert Gandt Colonel Gaddafi 'ordered Lockerbie bombing' Anger at Lockerbie bomber welcome Pan Am Jet Crashes in Scotland, Killing 270 Libya Admits Culpability In Crash of Pan Am Plane Lockerbie and the worst Christmas imaginable New Charges in Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing Lockerbie bombing suspect is now in US custody Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist Suspect in Custody for 1988 Bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland Syracuse University Remembrance Week Schedule 2023

In the third part of our story, we look at the train disaster caused by the tsunami and the aftermath of the disaster. Videos: Compilation in chronological order of videos of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami The man who Filmed the Tsunami - Shocking footage of the Indonesian disaster Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions: Sri Lanka Train Disaster 18 Years Later The Wave That Shook the World Tsunami: Caught on Camera 2004 Boxing Day tsunami playlist Articles and books: One train, more than 1,700 dead 10 years after tsunami, Utah man recovers, composes music linked to experiences The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami: The Story of the Deadliest Natural Disaster of the 21st Century, by Charles River Editors Wave of Destruction: The Stories of Four Families and History's Deadliest Tsunami, by Erich Krauss Scientists: Sumatra quake longest ever recorded Power of tsunami earthquake heavily underestimated Girl, 10, used geography lesson to save lives The Devastating 2004 Tsunami: Timeline 10 Years Since Dec 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: 17 years on, a look back at one of the deadliest natural disasters in history Blast from the Past The Volcanic Eruption of Krakatoa

First came the earthquake, then came the wave. Videos: Compilation in chronological order of videos of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami The man who Filmed the Tsunami - Shocking footage of the Indonesian disaster Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions: Sri Lanka Train Disaster 18 Years Later The Wave That Shook the World Tsunami: Caught on Camera Articles and books: One train, more than 1,700 dead 10 years after tsunami, Utah man recovers, composes music linked to experiences The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami: The Story of the Deadliest Natural Disaster of the 21st Century, by Charles River Editors Wave of Destruction: The Stories of Four Families and History's Deadliest Tsunami, by Erich Krauss Scientists: Sumatra quake longest ever recorded Power of tsunami earthquake heavily underestimated Girl, 10, used geography lesson to save lives The Devastating 2004 Tsunami: Timeline 10 Years Since Dec 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: 17 years on, a look back at one of the deadliest natural disasters in history Blast from the Past The Volcanic Eruption of Krakatoa

On December 26th, 2004, the world experienced one of the deadliest natural disasters we will ever see in our lifetimes. In part one, we will look at the earthquake which was just the start of a horrific tragedy. Videos: Compilation in chronological order of videos of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami The man who Filmed the Tsunami - Shocking footage of the Indonesian disaster Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions: Sri Lanka Train Disaster 18 Years Later The Wave That Shook the World Tsunami: Caught on Camera Articles and books: One train, more than 1,700 dead 10 years after tsunami, Utah man recovers, composes music linked to experiences The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami: The Story of the Deadliest Natural Disaster of the 21st Century, by Charles River Editors Wave of Destruction: The Stories of Four Families and History's Deadliest Tsunami, by Erich Krauss Scientists: Sumatra quake longest ever recorded Power of tsunami earthquake heavily underestimated Girl, 10, used geography lesson to save lives The Devastating 2004 Tsunami: Timeline 10 Years Since Dec 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: 17 years on, a look back at one of the deadliest natural disasters in history Blast from the Past The Volcanic Eruption of Krakatoa  

On a hot summer day in 1918, the night shift workers at the National Shell Filling Factory No. 6 in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire, England, arrived as per usual. One hundred and thirty-four of them would be dead within an hour and a half. Videos: Nottingham Forgotten Heroes #9 The Chilwell Munitions Workers The History Chap: The Chilwell Munitions Factory Explosion Articles and books: A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: When corpses fell from the Nottinghamshire sky Historic England Research Records: National Filling Factory Number 6 Chilwell Remembering the Chilwell Depot Explosion of 1918 and the Canary Girls, by Marian Dean Chilwell explosion: Events mark centenary of factory blast University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections: Chilwell Shell Filling Factory Explosion Footage of Chilwell shell factory found in shed seen for the first time in 100 years Revenge of the Curds: Remembering the Great Nottingham Cheese Riot of 1766 The History Press: Disaster at the Chilwell shell-filling factory Nottingham County Council: Chilwell National Shell Filling Factory Explosion

Rush hour is bad enough. The bridge you're on collapsing as you cross it during rush hour is even worse. Videos: I Survived ...: Virginia Tech and the I35W collapse 20/20 In An Instant: Rush Hour Disaster I-35W Bridge Collapse Structure and Components and Initial Failure 10 years later: Survivors reflect on the 35W bridge collapse Articles and books: NTSB: Design errors factor in 2007 bridge collapse Questions Rise About Previous Knowledge Of Bridge Hopes Dim in Minneapolis for Survivors Park board approves site for I-35W bridge memorial Hundreds turn out to dedication of 35W bridge memorial NTSB report on the I35W bridge collapse

On the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance in 2022, a person armed with a rifle walked into Club Q, an LGBTQIA+ club in Colorado Springs, CO. What followed was a bloodbath.   Videos: Video of Club Q shooting suspect previous threat WATCH: Club Q shooting survivor on how LGBTQ people are ‘continually being dehumanized’ Watch: Suspect accused of killing five people in the Club Q mass shooting appears in court Club Q Mass Shooting Survivor: It Was Home And To Not Have That Anymore Hurts Articles and books:   Timeline: Club Q emergency response What We Know About the Colorado Springs Shooting Gay club shooting suspect evaded Colorado’s red flag gun law Colorado Springs Survivor Recounts Terror of LGBTQ Club Shooting: 'All I Could Think of Was Pulse' Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Gunman Colorado police prioritize proper pronouns, names of shooting victims Focus on the Family’s Colorado Springs headquarters sign vandalized days after Club Q mass shooting LGBTQ club shooting suspect’s troubled past was obscured by a name change, records show Anderson Lee Aldrich: A history of family travail, personal violence Police found rainbow-colored shooting target, map of Club Q in suspect’s apartment Preached at, spat on, threatened, Colorado Springs' transgender community grapples with the Club Q attack Trump’s Ex-Lawyer Says Colorado Victims Reaping Consequences of ‘Eternal Damnation’ El Paso Sheriff's Office Statement Regarding Previous Arrest and Charging of Alleged Club Q Shooter Anderson Aldrich

While we are still close to the actual disaster for a regular episode on the subject, Jennifer takes an hour and a half to discuss the implosion of the OceanGate submersible on its dive down to the wreck of the Titanic.

In a small Pennsylvania town, the play set to be performed on a cold Monday night in January drew hundreds of people to the Rhoads Opera House. One hundred and seventy of them would never make it home alive. Videos: The Rhoads Opera House Fire: Legacy Of A Tragedy Articles and books: Midwinter Mourning and A Town in Tragedy, by Mary Jane Schneider Trapped in the Third Act: The Rhoads Opera House Fire, Boyertown 1908

When the sky darkened and the winds picked up at the Indiana State Fair on August 13th, 2011, those fans waiting for country band Sugarland to perform were worried the concert might be delayed. But there was something far more deadly for those in the audience to worry about. Videos: State Fair Tragedy: 10 Years Later Indianapolis stage collapse compiled raw footage w/ State Fire radio audio Indiana State Fair Stage Collapse - Weather Moments Before Sugarland Opens Up About Tragedy A STAGE FELL ON ME | Indiana State Fair Stage Collapse How the 2011 Indiana State Fair stage collapse lead to major changes in safety at large events Articles and books: 'Forever and yesterday': Remembering the Indiana State Fair stage collapse 10 years later LOOKING BACK ON SUGARLAND’S TRAGIC STAGE COLLAPSE 10 YEARS LATER Video: Flaming Lips’ Stage Collapses in Oklahoma $50 million settlement reached in Indiana State Fair stage collapse About us: Indiana State Fairgrounds and Event Center $39M settlement reached in Indiana State Fair stage collapse case Indiana State Fair Commission Investigative Report by Thornton Thomasetti Indiana stage collapse: was it preventable? Retro Indy: The deadly 1963 Coliseum explosion on Halloween night Indianapolis Monthly: The Collapse Indiana State Fair 2011 Setlists 2011: ISP releases timeline of Indiana State Fair stage collapse Fatality inquiry into 2009 Big Valley Jamboree death says standards needed for stages Storm at Belgium's Pukkelpop music festival kills five after stage collapses  

Jennifer recounts her visit to the 9/11 Museum in New York City.

  Every day we head off to work or school or wherever else we might be headed with the hope we will arrive there safely. But while we might feel like we can depend on ourselves to keep safe, sometimes our lives are in the hands of pilots, drivers, or engineers who are under extraordinary pressures we have no clue about until it's too late. Videos: Seconds From Disaster: Runaway Train (S 6, Ep 5) Trapped Underground for Hours After Horrific Train Crash (S 1 Ep 3) Fukuchiyama Derailment Mystery (Toshiden podcast, Tara A. Devlin) Articles and books: Families, Survivors Mark 14th Anniversary of Fatal JR West Derailment  54 Killed in Japan Train Crash Japan Train Derailment Two Survivors Pulled From Train Crash in Japan; Death Toll at 76 Second Train Derailment in Japan At Least 73 Dead, 456 Hurt in Japan Train Derailment Toll Rises in Japan Train Wreck Japan Train Crash Toll Climbs Japan’s Train Derailment Reaches 95, May Rise Further Rail Company in Japan Investigated Japan Crash Inquiry Focuses on Driver Death Crash Train Driver “Lived in Fear of Being Late” Final Survivor Pulled From Train Wreck in Japan In Japan Crash, Time Obsession May Be Culprit Japanese Rethink Faith in Rail System After Crash Rail Offices Raided in Crash Probe Union Chief Blames ‘Bullying’ Rail Firm for Japanese Train Crash Victims’ Phones Ring Out Across Crash Site Hope Sinks for Japan Crash Survivors Toll in Japan Train Crash Tops 100 Rescuers Find Body of Japan Train Crash Driver Workers Clear Railway Crash Scene as Toll Rises to 107 Japanese Train Crash Linked to Employee Stress Japanese Train Smash Aftermath a Circus Japan Train Driver Gets Reprimand JR West Defends Retraining Regimen Railway Accident Investigation Report Our Goal- A Corporate Culture that Places Top Priority on Safety JR West May Face Crash Negligence Trial If Human Errors are Assumed as Crimes in a Safety Culture: A Lifeworld Analysis of a Rail Crash JR West Punished Staff With Toilet Duty, Cutting Weeds Invisible Mutuality between Structural Inertia and Learning Disability - A Case Study of the West Japan Railway Accident 4.25 Street view of crash site memorial (Inori no Mori) Dawn of Japanese Railways (Mar. 1994) Japan Ex-Rail Chiefs Cleared of Fatal 2005 Crash Japan Marks 10th Anniversary of Fatal Train Crash Top Court Upholds Acquittal of Ex-JR West Heads Over 2005 Derailment Japan’s Train Woes Due to Structural Issues in Ageing Equipment, Lack of Young Engineers 2005 Train Crash Site Turned Into Place to Remember Victim Informational pamphlet on Inori no Mori (June 2019) Train Crash Survivor Aims for Bull’s Eye at Tokyo Paralympics JR West Plans to Preserve Train Cars in Deadly Derailment in ’05 The Derailment Accident on the Fukuchiyama Line Japan’s 2005 Deadly Derailment Bereaved Families Struggle to Pass Down Memory: Survey Victims of 2005 Derailment in Amagasaki Remembered Asymmetry of Authority or Information Underlying Insufficient Communication Associated with a Risk of Crashes or Incidents in Passenger Railway Transportation PARALYMPICS: Archery Athlete Never Lost Her Focus After 2005 Train Tragedy Train Driver Sues JR West for ¥56 Deducted Pay Over One Minute Delay Memorial Held for 107 Victims of 2005 Derailment for First Time in Three Years Rescue Operations at the Time of Train Derailment in Amagasaki, Hyogo (Powerpoint, Amagasaki City Fire Dept.) 147 Year History of Japanese Railways (2020) Construction of Local Railways (July 1995) Trains in Japan (2012) About us page of JR West Difference between different types of trains in Japanese train system Crush Injuries and the Crush Syndrome Crush Syndrome Victim Participation in the Criminal Process in Japan (Matsui Shigenori, 2020) Jan. 17, 1995 CE: Kobe Earthquake (6 Apr. 2020)                

It was just a little house fire. It should have gone out in no time. In a safer building, it would have. But within an hour and a half of the first call to 999 that night, Grenfell Tower was fully ablaze. Videos: Grenfell: The Fire of London Grenfell: The Worst Tower Block Fire in London History Grenfell Tower tragedy in 3D 12 Firefighters have Terminal Cancer Since 2017 Rescue First Reports of Grenfell Tower fire New video timeline shows how the Grenfell Tower fire unfolded What Happened With The Cladding At Grenfell Tower? Articles and books: Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, by Peter Apps Grenfell Tower inferno a 'disaster waiting to happen' as concerns are raised for safety of other buildings Concerns raised about Grenfell Tower 'for years' Fire alarm at Grenfell Tower was never meant for residents Grenfell: Cladding firm suggested use of cheaper panels Grenfell Tower refurbishment used cheaper cladding and tenants accused builders of shoddy workmanship Residents warned of 'catastrophic' Grenfell Tower block fire three years ago - but pleas 'fell on deaf ears' Faulty tumble dryer 'caused Shepherd's Bush tower block fire' Twenty-seven minutes and Grenfell Tower fire had taken hold: so why weren't residents told to get out? Grenfell Tower graphic: what we know about how the fire spread Questions Mount After Fire at Grenfell Tower in London Kills at Least 12 IFSEC Global: Grenfell Tower Fire: latest Inquiry updates and full timeline Behailu Kedebe's statement to the inquiry Kingspan: Fire performance of phenolic insulation Dozen Grenfell firefighters diagnosed with terminal cancer Fire crews extinguish blaze at Shepherd's Bush tower block                

It was just a little house fire. It should have gone out in no time. In a safer building, it would have. But within an hour and a half of the first call to 999 that night, Grenfell Tower was fully ablaze. Videos: Grenfell: The Fire of London Grenfell: The Worst Tower Block Fire in London History Grenfell Tower tragedy in 3D 12 Firefighters have Terminal Cancer Since 2017 Rescue First Reports of Grenfell Tower fire New video timeline shows how the Grenfell Tower fire unfolded What Happened With The Cladding At Grenfell Tower? Articles and books: Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, by Peter Apps Grenfell Tower inferno a 'disaster waiting to happen' as concerns are raised for safety of other buildings Concerns raised about Grenfell Tower 'for years' Fire alarm at Grenfell Tower was never meant for residents Grenfell: Cladding firm suggested use of cheaper panels Grenfell Tower refurbishment used cheaper cladding and tenants accused builders of shoddy workmanship Residents warned of 'catastrophic' Grenfell Tower block fire three years ago - but pleas 'fell on deaf ears' Faulty tumble dryer 'caused Shepherd's Bush tower block fire' Twenty-seven minutes and Grenfell Tower fire had taken hold: so why weren't residents told to get out? Grenfell Tower graphic: what we know about how the fire spread Questions Mount After Fire at Grenfell Tower in London Kills at Least 12 IFSEC Global: Grenfell Tower Fire: latest Inquiry updates and full timeline Behailu Kedebe's statement to the inquiry Kingspan: Fire performance of phenolic insulation Dozen Grenfell firefighters diagnosed with terminal cancer Fire crews extinguish blaze at Shepherd's Bush tower block                

It was just a little house fire. It should have gone out in no time. In a safer building, it would have. But within an hour and a half of the first call to 999 that night, Grenfell Tower was fully ablaze. Videos: Grenfell: The Fire of London Grenfell: The Worst Tower Block Fire in London History Grenfell Tower tragedy in 3D 12 Firefighters have Terminal Cancer Since 2017 Rescue First Reports of Grenfell Tower fire New video timeline shows how the Grenfell Tower fire unfolded What Happened With The Cladding At Grenfell Tower? Articles and books: Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, by Peter Apps Grenfell Tower inferno a 'disaster waiting to happen' as concerns are raised for safety of other buildings Concerns raised about Grenfell Tower 'for years' Fire alarm at Grenfell Tower was never meant for residents Grenfell: Cladding firm suggested use of cheaper panels Grenfell Tower refurbishment used cheaper cladding and tenants accused builders of shoddy workmanship Residents warned of 'catastrophic' Grenfell Tower block fire three years ago - but pleas 'fell on deaf ears' Faulty tumble dryer 'caused Shepherd's Bush tower block fire' Twenty-seven minutes and Grenfell Tower fire had taken hold: so why weren't residents told to get out? Grenfell Tower graphic: what we know about how the fire spread Questions Mount After Fire at Grenfell Tower in London Kills at Least 12 IFSEC Global: Grenfell Tower Fire: latest Inquiry updates and full timeline Behailu Kedebe's statement to the inquiry Kingspan: Fire performance of phenolic insulation Dozen Grenfell firefighters diagnosed with terminal cancer Fire crews extinguish blaze at Shepherd's Bush tower block                

Have you ever been stranded in your car in the middle of a snowstorm? Now imagine there are 350 other people in the car with you, and you're all stuck in that storm in the middle of an Alaskan canal for nearly two days. People come to rescue you but can't get any closer. And with every passing hour, your car groans and threatens to sink. That was what happened to the SS Princess Sophia in 1918. Videos: Disasters of the Century: The Princess Sophia Sinking The Sea Hunters: The Princess Sophia tragedy Articles and books: Stranded: Alaska’s Worst Maritime Disaster Nearly Happened Twice, by Aaron Saunders Report on the wreck of the Princess Sophia Forgotten Voyage Remembering the Princess Sophia: The Titanic of the Pacific West Coast National Park Service: The Princess Sophia The Wreck of HMCS Galiano October 1918

Ah, flying in the 1950s. Fancy clothes, good food, smoking in the airplane, and the chance to see sights you’d never get to see otherwise. Two planes flying over the Grand Canyon on a summer day in 1956 should have passed by perfectly fine, and probably would have on any other day. But tragedy would strike over one of the most beautiful places on Earth, changing the aviation industry in one horrifying moment. Videos: Fatal Collision Over the Grand Canyon | America's Worst Disaster | United 718 and TWA 2 Air Collision Over The Grand Canyon | Mayday | On The Move Historic Archaeology: The 1956 Grand Canyon Aviation Accident by Ben Carver (playlist) Articles and books: Historic Plane Wreck Site Protected The Site of a 1950s Plane Crash Just Became a National Landmark But the Park Service won't tell you how to get there. CAB accident report

On April 6th, 2018, the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team from Saskatchewan, Canada, were on their way to a playoff game in Nipawin. They weren't expecting the semi-tractor trailer headed westbound on Highway 335 - right into their path. Videos: Humboldt: The New Season How the Humboldt bus crash happened Special coverage of the tragedy in Humboldt, Saskatchewan W5: Jaskirat Sidhu, the 'Humboldt Driver,' speaks about the tragedy Articles and books: Agreed Statement of Facts - Humboldt Broncos Bus Crash Humboldt bus crash cause unknown as new details on truck and bus driving companies emerge Kingston man speaks to Humboldt crash intersection, where he lost his family 20 years ago Humboldt Broncos crash: What the RCMP forensics team found Humboldt presented E.J. McGuire Award of Excellence Coroner apologizes after mistaking Humboldt Broncos victim; Xavier LaBelle is alive Sports Illustrated: The Valley of Darkness 'One of the darkest days in the history of Saskatchewan' as 15 die in bus crash Humboldt Broncos crash site is no stranger to tragedy

The start of the summer season in Paris in the 1890s could arguably be the Bazar de la Charité, sort of a rummage sale for the wealthy to benefit the poor. The height of Parisian’s female society passed through its doors each year, and May 4th, 1897, was no different. But the presence of the bazaar’s biggest novelty - a cinematograph showing films by the Lumière brothers - also led to a gruesome tragedy. Videos: Visit to the site of the charity fire on Rue Jean Goujon Documentaire sur l'histoire de l'incendie du bazar de la charité Article and books: A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N D: Charles Pathe The Tragic 1897 Charity Bazaar Fire of Paris Remembering a Belle Époque inferno in Paris COWARDICE OF PARIS MEN Exhibited in Brutal Form During the Burning of the Charity Bazaar The Bazar de la Charité Disaster: part one, part two, part three, and part four. The Bazar de la Charite website A History of Women Who Burned to Death in Flammable Dresses Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-Siécle France, by Venita Datta

On April 15th, 2013, runners in Boston were approaching the finish line of the city's esteemed marathon at ten minutes to three in the afternoon when a large explosion tore through the crowd. Thirteen seconds later, a second one went off down the street. The manhunt for the men who committed the attack would last several days and take over the entire metropolitan area. Videos: The Days That Shaped America: Boston Bombing Nova - Manhunt Boston Bombers Boston Marathon Documentary - Amazing History & Injustices Discovery+: What Really Happened, the Boston Marathon bombing, parts one and two Articles and books: Criminal complaint against the surviving Boston bomber MIT News: "He loved us, and we loved him." Boston Bomb Victim in Photo Helped Identify Suspects Cambridge Man Indicted for Making False Statements in the Boston Marathon Bombing Terrorism Investigation Here's what various parts of the Boston Marathon bombing memorial represent Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge Officer Dennis Simmonds: 5 things to know about the Boston bombing's 5th victim Boston suspects [Update]: ‘Very normal,’ yet struggling to fit in Robel Phillipos sentenced to three years in prison Family says goodbye to youngest blast victim Timeline of Boston Marathon Bombing Events

On April 15th, 2013, runners in Boston were approaching the finish line of the city's esteemed marathon at ten minutes to three in the afternoon when a large explosion tore through the crowd. Thirteen seconds later, a second one went off down the street. The manhunt for the men who committed the attack would last several days and take over the entire metropolitan area. Videos: The Days That Shaped America: Boston Bombing Nova - Manhunt Boston Bombers Boston Marathon Documentary - Amazing History & Injustices Discovery+: What Really Happened, the Boston Marathon bombing, parts one and two Articles and books: Criminal complaint against the surviving Boston bomber MIT News: "He loved us, and we loved him." Boston Bomb Victim in Photo Helped Identify Suspects Cambridge Man Indicted for Making False Statements in the Boston Marathon Bombing Terrorism Investigation Here's what various parts of the Boston Marathon bombing memorial represent Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge Officer Dennis Simmonds: 5 things to know about the Boston bombing's 5th victim Boston suspects [Update]: ‘Very normal,’ yet struggling to fit in Robel Phillipos sentenced to three years in prison Family says goodbye to youngest blast victim Timeline of Boston Marathon Bombing Events

The family dinner party was in full swing, despite the host needing to be carried out in a drunken stupor only twenty minutes earlier. But this is no ordinary family. This is the royal palace of Nepal, and the host - Crown Prince Dipendra - is about to return, angry and armed. Videos: Zero Hour : The Nepalese Royal Massacre Why Nepal's Prince Organised A Royal Massacre | Asia's Monarchies | Real Royalty Articles and books: Love and Death in Kathmandu: A Strange Tale of Royal Murder, by Amy Willisee and Mark Whittaker Death, Love and Conspiracy: The Nepalese Royal Massacre of 2001 A Witness To Massacre In Nepal Tells Gory Details Prince blamed for Nepal massacre

The Mexico City suburb of San Juan Ixhuatepec was the home of poor immigrants, working-class families, dozens of large businesses, and a Pemex oil and gas company site - at least, until November 19th, 1984. Videos: Ciudadano Infraganti Explosiones de San Juanico 1984 Articles and books: San Juan Ixhuatepec remembers one of world's worst industrial disasters Three decades on, survivors of worst Pemex blast still want answers Mexican Blast Stirs Anger, Criticism Center for Chemical Process Safety: Thirty Years Ago - An LPG Tragedy State and community during the aftermath of Mexico City's November 19, 1984 Gas Explosion Mexico Furor Over Gas Blast Is Quickly Over Recordando la catástrofe de San Juanico They convert land where the San Juanico explosion occurred into a recreational park

For five days in July of 1995, the city of Chicago baked underneath record temperatures, and behind closed doors people suffered for days - the poor, the elderly, the disabled. By the time the heat wave was over, over 750 people were dead. Sources can be found at http://disasterareapodcast.wordpress.com/.  

Surely this can't be the 200th episode!   It is the 200th episode, and don't call me Shirley.   Videos: "Airplane!" "Airplane II: The Sequel" Articles and books: Internet Movie Plane Database - Airplane! Bulls vs. Lakers Box Score: March 7th, 1980 Airplane! script Airplane II script

There is always bound to be a first - the first person to climb Mount Everest, the first person to run a four-minute mile, the first woman to become president. But there are terrible firsts, and in this episode we discuss the first major tragedy of the American space race. Videos: Apollo 1 Audio - January 27th, 1967 Articles and books: The Astronaut Wives Club, by Lily Koppel Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger Deke, by Deke Slayton and Michael Cassutt Chasing the Moon, by Robert Stone and Alan Andres A Man on the Moon, by Andrew Chaikin Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us On the Moon, by Ryan S. Walters Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations, by Charles D. Benson and William Faherty Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969, by Courtney Brooks, James Grimwood, and Loyd Swenson Apollo 1 report Apollo 1: The Fire Space Safety Magazine: The Apollo 1 Fire ‘We have a fire in the cockpit!’ The Apollo 1 disaster 50 years later American Institute of Physics: Trial by Fire: The Legacy of Apollo 1

A man armed with semi-automatic weapons and a livestreaming camera walks into a place full of people he hates and commits a mass murder. It shouldn't be something we see more than once. But now we have.

In which Jennifer describes her visits to disaster sites in New York City last week, including the 9/11 Memorial, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, and the 1920 Wall Street bombing.

We all hope that in a moment of great need, we would do the right thing. When the airspace over the United States closed on September 11th, the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, did just that.

In fifteen minutes one Friday in April of 1967, one tornado slashed through the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, leaving dozens dead in its wake. But it wasn't the only tornado to strike the area that afternoon.

It was just supposed to be a typical office training session masked as a Christmas party - the speeches, the boring videos, the slideshows that probably could have been an email. But at 11 AM, everything changed when a person dressed all on black entered the conference room and began shooting. Then it got worse - they weren't alone.

First, the train ran off the rails. Then, fire rained from the sky. Hell, it seemed, had come to San Bernardino.

When Hollywood legend Carole Lombard boarded TWA Flight 3 on January 16th, 1942, in Las Vegas, she hoped to be home in only a few short hours. She and the twenty-one other people on board only made it thirty-three miles closer to home.

What do you get when you have sixty noblemen in a cess pit? One of the most disgusting disasters of all time.

I just wanted to share some news regarding the podcast for those of you who don't follow the social media accounts or Patreon. Nothing terrible, I promise. 

When we all first heard basketball legend Kobe Bryant had died, the world was in disbelief. But the how of it all made everything so much more tragic.

Dragging yourself into work on a Monday can always feel grim. But on June 18th, 1990, the employees at the GMAC office in Jacksonville, Florida, had something far more terrifying than boring meetings to look forward to that day.

And now for Jennifer's hometown disaster - when one small hurricane turned southern New York and Pensylvania into one big muddy lake.

On March 18th, 1937, the students in the junior-senior high school of New London, TX, sat waiting in eager antipation of the end of the school day, looking forward to a three-day weekend. But the school, and many of the students and teachers inside the building, wouldn't make it to 3:30.

The Trolley Squre Mall in Salt Lake City was a popular and historical landmark with a quaint and quirky design. On February 12th, 2007, a young man would arrive at the mall to do something no one, not even his family, saw coming.

The first maneuver the Frecce Tricolori display team would perform at the Ramstein air show on August 28th, 1988, was called the pierced-heart maneuver. But when three of the planes collided, what followed woud instead pierce through the heart of the crowd, killing dozens.

The man on the train would not be quiet, and what he was saying was horrifying. Three men would stand up to him. Only one of those men would survive.

We will never know the entirety of what happened on the Taconic State Parkway on July 26th, 2009, but we know enough - that a drunk and high mom driving a van loaded with five children drove the wrong way and struck another vehicle, leaving eight people dead. It's in the details where the mystery grows.

On September 21st, 1921, the day dawned just like any other workday at the BASF fertilizer plant in Oppau, Germany. But just a few minutes after 7:30 that morning, an explosion rocked the town and left hundreds dead underneath the remains of Oppau.

On the night of December 2nd, 2016, an Oakland warehouse burned to the ground. There was just one small problem - it wasn't empty at the time.

Jennifer went on a five-day-long pilgrimage to as many disaster sites as she could manage and now she's going to talk about it for two whole hours.  

On December 14th, 2012, a young man carrying a Bushmaster rifle walked over the shattered glass from the front doors of Sandy Hook Elementary School and into the building. He was already a murderer. In another five minutes, he would be dead.

September 11th was still fresh in everyone's minds when, two months later, an Airbus 300 crashed in a Queens neighborhood after takeoff from JFK International Airport. Was it terrorism, or something else?

It has been twenty years this month since the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, but they weren't the first time the trade center found itself the target of a deadly terrorist attack.

We are so used to receiving all sorts of warning on our phones - Amber alerts, COVID exposures, weather watches. One weather app on our phone is all it takes to be warned of flood conditions or upcoming storms. But in 1990, people in northeastern Illinois received absolutely no warning that a powerful late-summer tornado was about to tear their lives apart.

Waiting is just a part of flying anywhere, whether it's hanging out waiting to board the plane, twiddling your thumbs while your plane waits for permission to take off, sighing in frustration as the captain announces you'll need to hold over your destination and won't be landing on time. But it could be worse ... far, far worse.

After six months of striking against the copper companies of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the families of the striking miners -especially their children - looked forward to a union Christmas party at the Italian Hall in Calumet. Everyone was having a wonderful time, right up the moment a strange man appeared and yelled, "Fire!"

A month after the death of President John F. Kennedy, plenty of Americans could use whatever pick-me-up they could get. The Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL, was just such an event. But after a night of celerating came the tragedy that unfolded when exhausted football fans awoke in hotel rooms slowly filling with smoke.

It's late at night, and you're sleeping soundly until you're awakened by a stench that makes your stomach roll. You hack and cough as your eyes burn. You can barely breathe. So you grab your spouse and your kids, and you run. You run, not just by yourself, but with everyone in your neighborhood, all of you trying to escape a silent killer.

At 9:02 AM on April 19th, 1995, an explosion rocked the downtown area of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. When people saw the devastated Alfred P. Murrah federal building, many thought at first it was a natural gas explosion. But it turned out to be something much more sinister.

Being the only survivor of a plane crash is difficult enough. Being the only survivor when you were the one in the cockpit is another level of tragic.

In the early 1900s, the coal fields of West Virginia were a tough place to work. With the mine owners keeping a tight grip on their wallets, miners got cheated out of their rightful earnings left, right, and center. From 1912 to 1922, southern West Virginia became a hotbed of miners who refused to take the mine owners' disrespect any longer.

Imagine you get up at the crack of dawn for a work trip, drag your tired body to the airport, and get onto a plane that sits in a line to take off for another forty minutes. You may think things can't get any worse. You would be wrong.

As Hurricane Rita approached Texas in September of 2005, three million people evacuated the Houston area, among them a busload of thirty-seven residents from the Brighton Gardens of Bellaire assisted living facility. Twenty-three of them would ever make it to their destination alive.

It was a clear winter's day, and there was no reason to think the trip to school on bus #27 would be any different than any other day. But as driver John DeRossett steered the bus around the curve after Knottly Hollow, what happened next would devastate the entirety of Floyd County, Kentucky.

One hundred years ago this month, the Greenwood district of Tulsa - arguably the most prosperous Black community in America - faced one of the darkest, most shameful days in American history.

On a warm Friday night in July, 2013, over a hundred people were enjoying the comfortable atmosphere and enjoyable music at the Musi-Cafe, a popular local bar in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Then at quarter after one, the ground began to shake as a runaway train barrel down the local tracks with no one at the controls. What happened next would destroy a town both physically and emotionally.

It was the start of the winter ski season on November 11th, 2000, and the skiers and snowboarders heading up to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier on the funicular train were excited for the day to begin. But in only a few minutes, everybody aboard the funicular in Kaprun, Austria, would be fighting to survive inside a tunnel so close to help, yet so very far away.

The deadliest shipwreck of all time took place on a cold January night in 1945, when a recommissioned German cruise ship carrying thousands of East Prussian refugees to safety in the west didn't notice the long slim Soviet sub following them in the icy Baltic waters until it was far too late.

On the night of October 30, 2015, the Romanian heavy metal band Goodbye to Gravity held a free concert at Club Colectiv in Bucharest. The events of that night would upend Romanian society and government in ways no one could have seen coming.

Chilean prisons were overcrowded, rife with violence, and dilapidated beyond human habitation. It was only a matter of time before the system imploded, and on December 8th, 2010, it finally did - all thanks to a propane gas stove.

By 1932, Ukrainians would see their lands taken to be turned into collective farms, their cupboards emptied, their valuables stolen, and anyone who complained shipped off to work camps. But from 1932 to 1933, Ukraine would experience the final results of having all of that taken away - a long torturous genocide by starvation.

Drinks are on the house! And in the street, and in the basements, and ... well, they're everywhere. On October 17th, 1814, in St. Giles Rookery, London, that was kind of the problem.

On a snowy Tuesday in 1956, it's more than likely most of the people on the 8:00 AM train from Danvers, Massachusetts, to Boston would much rather have been home warm and toasty in their bed. Instead, those in the front car would soon find themselves facing a horrifying death.

On March 24, 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 went down over the French Alps. But it wasn't mechanical failure or bad weather which brought down the doomed flight. It was an entirely different kind of tragic.

At 5:34 PM on May 22, 2011, the town of Joplin, Missouri, faced a threat that every town in the Midwest expects to face at some time or another - a tornado. But the monster which grew to life just to the southwest of Joplin became a nightmare which tore apart everything in its path.

Maybe now is not the best time to take a cruise, but back in 1965 a short Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas could be a lovely break for those in Miami looking for a little fun. The SS Yarmouth Castle was just one of several ships people could take on a relaxing weekend trip. But on November 13th, 1965, the fun on the Yarmouth Castle ended with the steady stream of smoke coming from storage  room 610.

When you board an aircraft, you would hope your captain, first officer, and flight engineer are experienced, well-trained, and able to work well together in an emergency. The passengers who boarded Saudia Flight 163 in August of 1980 were not so fortunate.

Five miles from the border with Mexico sits a common American sight - a Walmart, situated between a mall and a cluster of car dealerships. In a busy city just across the border from another busy city, the Walmart at Cielo Vista Mall was always packed full of people, something a young man with hate in his heart used to his advantage.

On October 6th, 2018, seventeen friends and family of birthday girl Amy Steenburg climbed aboard a stretch SUV limousine for a celebratory trip to a local brewery. Within the hour, everyone on board would be dead.

Twelve boys and their football coach. One flooded cave. Thousands of volunteers, medical personnel, media members, friends, family, and - perhaps most importantly of all - cave diving experts. Every single one would be needed to make sure the thirteen members of the Wild Boars football club would survive their escape from Tham Luang.

Climb aboard and view the amazing sights to be seen around the ancient city of Luxor in Egypt - the Valley of the Kings, the ruins of Thebes, and dozens of other temples and statues throughout the region! Oh, afraid of hot air balloons? Then perhaps this story is not for you.

For our 150th episode, we look at a disaster in which everyone survived, thanks to a flight crew with the skill and fortitude to pull off a Miracle on the Hudson.

You should be safe in your place of worship. But this week two years ago, a man walked into the Tree of Life-Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh and broke that rule.

In the early morning hours of April 7th, 1990, most of the people onboard the MS Scandinavian Star were fast asleep in their cabins, resting as they traveled from Oslo to Frederikshavn. But at least one person on the ship was not only awake, but plotting something which would leave hundreds of people fighting for their lives.

You're stuck inside, unable to leave where you are and growing more frustrated by the day. But it's not quarantine, it's 1910 in the Cascade mountains, and you're stuck in a train that's been snowed in beside a small Washington town that's little more than a speck on the map. And as the snow falls for the sixth day in a row, the steep hillside above you, packed with heavy snow, silently threatens to fall. All it needs is one tiny push for disaster to strike.

The city didn't have to burn. Looters didn't have to break windows and rob businesses of everything that wasn't tied down. People didn't have to die. But in certain circumstances, when there is no justice, there will be no peace.

Please don't store all of your explosives in one place. Particularly if there are thunderstorms in the weather forecast.

The congregation of St. Mark's Lutheran church in New York City's Little Germany had been waiting for the Sunday school picnic excursion all year. Mothers dressed their kids in their best clothes and packed up good food in baskets to bring with them on the trip up the East River and out to Long Island. On June 15th, 1904, thirteen hundred people would be aboard the General Slocum as it left the pier near the Williamsburg Bridge. Within two hours, over a thousand of them would be dead.

You're at a midsummer evening party at a friend's beach house, enjoying a cocktail or two as the sun sets, when a loud noise draw everyone's gaze to the skies above the ocean. Something has exploded up above - a plane, raining down in fiery pieces on the water below. The sight is already terrifying enough until the whispers start. Did anyone else see something arcing up toward the plane before it blew up?

It was just supposed a late-night birthday party on the Thames - a little drinking, a little dancing, and a lot of fun with all their friends. But in the early morning hours of August 20th, 1989, the 131 people onboard the pleasure boat Marchioness found themselves at the mercy of a ship three times her size.

It spewed smoke and ash that destroyed crops and killed livestock, and yet they stayed. It caused earthquakes that damaged buildings and mudslide which killed hundreds, and yet they stayed. It sent insects and venomous snakes fleeing down into the town, and yet the people of Saint Pierre on the island of Martinique - or more specifically, some of their political leaders - refused to listen to the wordless threats issued by Mount Pelee. 

It came out of nowhere, flowing in waves throughout the world during a time of great international upheaval. Some did what they could to fight it. Some were struck down, and tragically lost so quickly it was hard to believe they were gone. Some were careless about the whole thing, refusing to wear masks or continuing to gather together for parades and parties. But in the end, what mattered was the virus, and the damage it wrecked.

The gathering was just a union meeting, the Black sharecroppers of Phillips County, Arkansas, banding together and trying to get a fair pay for their work in the cotton fields. But when the night ended in bloodshed, the county's white citizens thought it was something more. Then the posse formed, and all Hell broke loose.

It should have just have been a rough-and-tumble overnight ride across the sea, enjoying a good beer or a meal as the waves crashed outside. But then, early in the morning of September 28th, 1994, a loud noise rattled through the ferry Estonia, and the countdown to the ship's quick death began. 

All of us are in the middle of trying to survive a disaster. Tsutomu Yamaguchi managed to do so twice in one week.

It all started when the sandstorm kicked up. Hours later when the winds died down, Marathon des Sables entrant Mauro Prosperi found himself alone in the Moroccan desert, unable to locate the rest of the runners. Nine days later, surprising everyone, he would be found alive.

Founded in 1824, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution provided the British Isles with a standing organization of trained volunteers ready and willing to save those in peril in the surrounding waters on a moment's notice.

The images were striking - the faint outline in the marshland of the Everglades where a DC-9 struck the ground, killing all 110 people on board. But what killed all those people within only minutes of takeoff from Miami?

You're working down in the mine several hundred feet below the surface when you start to smell smoke. It's growing thicker with every passing minute, and it's coming from between you and the only way out of the mine. 

In our first commercial disaster, it was supposed to be the first Tumblr convention, a safe place for fans to share their joy in things like Sherlock, Welcome to Night Vale, anime, and other interests. But what was supposed to be a good time ended up being a prolonged dumpster fire, complete with a bouncy house and a ball pit.

It was the last night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival and people were eager to see country star Jason Aldean take the stage. Twenty-five minutes into his performance, he stepped up to the mike ... only to make a run for it off the stage. Soon, everyone else in the audience would be running for cover as well.

It was one of the most respected ships on the sea, a luxurious way to travel from Canada to Europe. But one foggy night was all it would take to send the Empress of Ireland to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River in a mere fourteen minutes.

Would the United States and the Soviet Union nuke each other out of existence? In the 1980s, no one could be sure. So in 1982, a little girl named Samantha Smith just went ahead and asked -- the leader of the Soviet Union, that is.

In this final episode of our Chernobyl series, we look at how Pripyat has fared in the years since it was evacuated, among other things.

In the penultimate episode of our Chernobyl series, we look at the investigation into the causes of the accident and the failures behind the scenes which led to the disaster.

The break is over and it's back to Chernobyl, where everything is covered with radioactive dust and the remains of reactor #4 are a continuing danger to everyone - both in the immediate vicinity, and quite possibly to all of those in western Europe.

In this part of our Chernobyl series, we reach the moment of truth - the day when all of Chernobyl's underlying problems rose to the surface and led to the worst nuclear power disaster in history.

In this episode, we see Chernobyl's beginnings, and just where cracks begin to form underneath the surface.

Before we get into the story of Chernobyl, we explore a few previous nuclear disasters, learn how radiation and nuclear accidents are measured, and find out just how sick ionizing radiation will make you.

It's St. Valentine's Day weekend, and love is in the air. Young people throughout northern Dublin flocked to the Stardust in 1981, drawn by the promise of a disco dancing competition to start at one in the morning. But within an hour of people gathering around the dance floor to start the contest, all eight hundred people in the Stardust would be fighting for their lives against a deadly inferno.

They were some of the best and the brightest in British football. In the mid-to-late 1950s, the Busby Babes were young talented players signed on to Manchester United F.C. by manager Matt Busby to mold into a winning side. And win they did, creeping ever closer to Busby's goal of the European Cup. But on February 6th, 1958, the crash which would come to be known as the Munich air disaster would break the hearts of Manchester United fans, Great Britain, and the sporting world at large.

It was a normal working Saturday at the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey - until it wasn't. After the cotton bales on pier three caught fire so very close to barrels of oil and turpentine, every ship docked along the waterfront was under threat, and not all of them would make it out in one piece.

With World War II raging on throughout Europe, those civilians who were merely trying to survive in their day-to-day lives in southern Italy were on the brink of starvation. They needed food, and to find some they opted to hop a freight train to the countryside to barter for whatever they could find. On March 2nd, hundreds of people either boarded the no. 8017 train at Balvano station with legitimate tickets or snuck into one of the train's many freight cars. The vast majority of those onboard would be dead within hours.

Feeling hot this summer? It could be worse. In January of 1719 during the Great Northern War, six thousand troops from the Swedish army began what should have been a two-day walk back over the Norwegian border to their own empire, mentally and physically exhausted from a four-month-long losing battle. But then the snow came, and what was supposed to be a two-day hike turned into a week-long nightmare.  

One country said it was a tragic mistake during wartime. One country claimed it was a deliberate and heartless act. But one thing was true - whether it was one or the other, the shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 took the lives of 290 innocent people in July of 1988.

It's time for the yearly school trip - no, not to Washington, DC, or the Grand Canyon or New Orleans. In 1986, as every year before it, the kids in the Basecamp program at Oregon Episcopal School participated in a special trip - a climb up Mount Hood in the Cascade mountain range. But when the group left the school late on the night of May 11th, 1986, to head to Mount Hood for the opportunity of a lifetime, they had no idea nine of them would not be coming back alive.

It's 1942, and it's men in uniform and women in pretty dresses everywhere you go. Tonight's you're at the Cocoanut Grove, arguably the most popular supper club in Boston. The decor matches the name, with a tropical theme and fake palm trees surrounding a dance floor bracketed by Spanish-tiled eaves. You and your steady beau are all set up with drinks and ready to watch the floor show when there's a commotion from the direction of the stairs down to the basement Melody Lounge. Is it the fight it sounds like? Or is it something far, far more dangerous?

In two weeks, it will have been three years since a man walked into Pulse in Orlando, FL, bearing a rifle and intent on turning the last day of that city's Pride week into the last night many in the popular gay nightclub would ever see.

It was something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. On June 5, 2009, a spark caught on the other side of the wall of the ABC daycare center in Hermosillo, Mexico. On that side of the wall, a growing fire. On the other side, over a hundred and forty children between the ages of six months and five years old and only six adults to watch them - and save them when the fire broke through.

There's only a half an hour before the end of the school day, and your teacher is working through her final lesson - geography, geometry, Shakespeare. Then you think you smell something - a whiff of smoke. The room starts to warm up. In only a few short minutes, you and the rest of your classmates find yourself with a horrific choice - burn to death, or leap down to the pavement below? The young students of Our Lady of the Angels Catholic elementary school in Chicago, IL, faced that very decision on the first day of December in 1958.

All it would take was one spark. The southeastern Australian state of Victoria was dried out and temperatures were tipping into the high forties Celsius. In early February of 2009, the region could burn so very easily. Everyone knew February 7th was likely to be the day that summer Victoria burned. 

There are certain things you don't want to see out the window when you're sitting on a plane that's taking off. Seeing pieces of the plane fall off - like, say, the engine - are pretty high up on the list. Passengers sitting on American Airlines Flight 191 as it took off from O'Hare International Airport on May 25, 1979, were horrified to look out their windows and see exactly that happen to the engine on the left wing. They would only be horrifed for another thirty-one seconds.

What do you do when your home is no longer safe enough to be a home anymore? You try to find a new home, even it means hurrying things along for your own protection. The Jewish refugees on board the MS St Louis in May of 1939 were looking for just such a place. All they found were doors slammed in their faces.

You're driving along on a road trip and your engine starts to smoke. You give it another half mile or so, then pull over. By the time you pop the hood, the smoke has turned into actual flames spewing out of your car somehow. So you back away as far as you can for your own safety. It's terrifying enough if this happens to you while driving down an everyday country road or rural highway. But what if it happens when you're in the middle of one of the longest highway tunnels in the world?

It was a little slice of Vegas transplanted to a Kentucky hillside just outside of Cincinnati, an elegant showcase for the likes of the Rat Pack, Marilyn Monroe, Liberace, and Frankie Valli. The Beverly Hills Supper Club went from a mafia-run illegal gambling den to the sort of place you could hold your kid's bar mitzvah or the Elk Club awards ceremony. But on Memorial Day weekend in 1977, all of that would end in a terrible fire those in the area would remember for years.

In late January of 1959, ten hikers left the city of Sverdlovsk heading for an adventure in the wilderness. Only one of them returned alive. So what happened to Igor Dyatlov and the other eight hikers who died at what would later come to be known as Dyatlov Pass? 

N'Dolo Airport could not have been any worse of an airport to take off from in 1996 if it tried. Whether it be the pitted runway or the handwaving of appropriate documentation and procedures, flying out of N'Dolo was a nightmare, one which anyone with bad intentions could use to their advantage. This is why so many different factors came together at once to cause a horrific tragedy in the city of Kinshasa in January of 1996, a catastrophe which left hundreds of innocent people dead in its wake. 

It was almost like a terribly kept secret. The Top Storey Club sat hidden away on the topmost story of an old warehouse you needed to wander through furniture workshops and storerooms on lower floors to reach, like a princess in a tower. But on May 1, 1961, the combination of a popular nightclub and workrooms cluttered with flammable materials below it would prove a deadly equation.

It was the worst manmade explosion in human history prior to the bombing of Hiroshima. On December 6, 1917, Halifax, Nova Scotia, was one of the busiest ports in the world, with wartime traffic passing through on a daily basis. The French ship, the Mont Blanc, was just another ship in the harbor, but its cargo hold carried a deadly secret which would wipe out thousands of lives in an instant.

Hear ye, hear ye! Come one, come all, on the evening of May 2, 1845, to see a fantastic sight! Nelson the clown of the Cooke Royal Circus will be performing for you all on the river Bure in Great Yarmouth - floating along on the tide in a wooden washtub pulled by four of the finest geese in the land! Simply head to the suspension bridge over the river with all of your other young friends and wait - and cross your fingers that you know how to swim.

The river was a sewer - almost literally. In 1858 London, the Thames wound through the city carrying everything from fecal matter to slaughterhouse offal. Even worse, that was the city's drinking source. If three separate cholera outbreaks weren't enough to change people's minds about how to handle the problem, adding a heat wave to the mix might do the trick.

For the 100th episode of the podcast, we examine a genuine Christmas miracle, in which the bad guys lose, one man wins, and Twinkies survive an entirely different kind of disaster than we thought they would.

If you're afraid of flying, it's usually a more understandable fear - bad weather may bring your plane down, your pilot might screw something up, something on the plane might break. But a much more unlikely fear might be that someone on board might decide that in order to milk out a little insurance money, they're going to blow up the plane you're flying in, either to take themselves out or to get rid of someone they'd much rather do without. On November 1, 1955, just such a bomb knocked United Airlines Flight 629 out of the air. But just who was the culprit? And who was the target?

Every year, three million Muslims arrive in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to complete the hajj, an important series of rituals which must be undertaken by all physically and financially capable Muslims at least once during their lifetime. But three million people crammed into any place is a magnet for disaster, and over the years Mecca has seen multiple tragedies which left thousands of innocent pilgrims dead - plane crashes, fires, crushing incidents. The hajj season of 2015 was forced to deal with two separate tragedies - a horrific crane collapse at the Grand Mosque which left behind a nightmarish scene, and a crushing incident just before the Jamarat Bridge which ended with nearly 2500 people lying dead on the streets of Mina. 

The MGM Grand hotel and casino sat in a plum spot right along South Las Vegas Boulevard in the glittering city of - surprise - Las Vegas, Nevada. Hosting Dean Martin roasts and a long-running performance of Jubilee!, the MGM Grand featured the height of 1970s Las Vegas-caliber entertainment in a luxurious hotel anyone would die to stay in. But in the early morning hours of November 21, 1980, a deadly secret smoldered inside one of the hotel's five restaurants.

The Gente Inocente nursery in Janauba, Brasil, was small and poor but filled daily with happy children. Then, on October 5, 2017, a familiar face came to the front gate. It was the night watchman, and he wanted to come inside. But what seemed innocent enough would turn out to be anything but, and would end with a bottle of alcohol and a burst of flames.

The Sunshine Skyway bridge was a well-known piece of Florida architecture, carrying vehicles back and forth across Tampa Bay and allowing ships to pass underneath in the bay's busy shipping channel. But on May 9, 1980, a sudden and ferocious storm brought all three - the ships, the bridge, and the cars - to a tragic shared end.

On April 10, 1968, Cyclone Giselle hit New Zealand at the worst possible - when the ferry TEV Wahine was returning to Wellington with over seven hundred passengers. The Wahine entered Wellington Harbor as the storm raged around it, and for a moment everything seemed no worse than any other stormy day in the city. But then the wind speed doubled, and over the course of the morning the Wahine struggled to remain afloat with the safety of dry land so close, yet so far away.

The women were - to say the very least - incredibly pissed. In recent years, their rights had been whittled away, leaving their status a husk of what it had once been. Their complaints were either ignored by men in power, or not worth sharing with them knowing what the reaction would be. All it took was one confrontation between a man in a position of privilege and a woman who'd had enough, and the straw broke the camel's back. At the end of 1929, the women of southern and eastern Nigeria would show the men of the British colonial government that the women would demand their respect.

All they wanted was a ride to JFK International Airport. But on May 16, 1977, the passengers waiting on the rooftop of the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan to get onto a helicopter shuttle to the airport would miss their flight, all due to a single snapped landing gear strut.

It was quiet in the rural Australian ski village of Thredbo, New South Wales, at 11:30 PM on the night of July 30th, 1997. Then the ground near Bobuck Lane began to tremble. A moment later, the hillside slid downward, taking two ski lodges containing nineteen people with it and crushing them in the chaos. It would be more than two days before rescuers who'd come to believe no one survived the tragedy heard a voice calling for help underneath the rubble. Ski instructor Stuart Diver was still alive - now it was just a matter of getting him out. 

Let's go back almost four hundred years to a time when sailing ships steered their way across the oceans of the world, whether it be for travel, exploration, or war. In Sweden, King Gustav II Adolph wanted four new ships be added to the country's navy, including an impressive ship featuring two gun decks - the Vasa. Then she sank twenty minutes into her maiden voyage. Three hundred and thirty years later, however, the Vasa would rise out of the sea once again.

In 1921, a ship dropped four white men, one Alaska Native woman, and one cat off on the desolate shore of Wrangel Island, a strip of land just north of easternmost Siberia. Two years later when a relief ship finally broke through the ice and returned, only two of those beings were still alive.

Moore, Oklahoma, had the worst luck. Over the course of fifteen years, the Oklahoma City suburb would have five major tornados blow through the area, causing billions of dollars in damage. One in particular which struck on May 20, 2013, caused another tragic kind of damage, heading straight for two of the town's elementary schools.

On this International Cat Day, we look back at the story of a leopard whose feeding habits veered away from its normal prey into the human world, and a hunter determined to stop its deadly eight-year spree in northeastern India. 

It was the deadliest building fire in United States history, twice as deadly as the fire which tore through the city three decades earlier. Chicago thought it had seen the worst that fire could do, but then came the afternoon of December 30, 1903. The Iroquois Theater was filled and then some - with children on Christmas break and their parents, with teachers enjoying their own time off, with college students wishing to enjoy a show with their friends. "Mr. Bluebeard" was supposed to be a spectacle, and it was - a terrifying one.

Four years ago this week, a plane full of innocent people just going about their lives - returning home, heading for vacation in Malaysia, flying to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne - unwillingly became a pawn in a war they played no part in before that day. On July 17, 2014, someone in an Ukrainian war zone looked up and thought they saw enemy military aircraft overhead. So they positioned their Russian-made missile and fired. What happened afterward would be a subject of debate - and a source of international tensions - to this day.

During the sweltering Easter holidays in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1992, the Reforma district reeked for days. Everything smelled of gas, but no one could figure out precisely where the source was. Tap water stank. Manhole covers rattled where they sat in the street. On Wednesday, April 22nd, one explosion after another tore through the working-class neighborhood and left the streets a ragged canyon winding through Guadalajara. 

Neerja Bhanot was uniquely successful in two fields - as a model, and as a senior purser for international airline Pan Am. But on September 5, 1986, the bravery of Neerja and her cabin staff was tested when a group of armed militants stormed the plane, demanding to be flown to Cyprus. What would happen over the next seventeen hours would be terrifying, chaotic, and in the end a display of the heroism on one incredible cabin crew. 

It would take the worst terrorist attack in modern times to steal the Joelma Building fire's title as the deadliest high-rise fire. On February 1, 1974, the office building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, was slowly filling with hundreds of employees starting their work day. Then an air conditioner on the twelfth floor sparked. Within hours, at least 179 people would be dead from the sudden and all-encompassing conflagration.

It was only supposed to last a few hours. All they would have to do was keep quiet, keep their heads down, and wait it out until they reached Houston. But at two AM on the morning of May 14, 2003, the driver of a truck would pull over near a truck stop and open the trailer at the back to a horrifying scene.

Graniteville, South Carolina, is like a lot of small towns - quiet and filled with hard-working people. It was the quiet that was broken when a moving train struck another train parked on a spur in the early morning hours of January 6, 2005, and it was the hard-working people who suffered when a damaged tanker began leaking deadly chlorine gas into the air. (TW: Discussion of suicide.)

It was hot that day in August of 1966, so hot you probably could have cracked an egg and cooked it on the sidewalk. Students walking the campus of the University of Texas at Austin did so under the watchful eye of the main building's tower. As noon neared, everyone was looking forward to heading off to lunch. That's when the shooting began. It wouldn't end for another ninety-six minutes.

On a busy Friday morning in 1975, the London Underground was packed with people heading off to work at insurance and banking companies. In one six-car train on the Northern Line, driver Leslie Newson was just having a normal workday, with plans to go buy his daughter a car after the day was done. He'd not leave the Underground alive, and neither would forty-two of his passengers.

Forty-two years. That's how long one man spent in prison for setting the deadly fire at the Pioneer International Hotel in Tucson, Arizona, just after midnight on December 20, 1970, when the place was packed with holiday tourists and Christmas partygoers. There was just one problem - he may have been innocent the whole time.

Children of the 80s know their pop culture touchstones - when the Challenger exploded, when the Berlin Wall came down, that time everyone was wondering who shot J.R. One particular 80s moment was a story of survival by a Texas toddler, an incident which was not without precedent but had yet to produce a happy ending.

In the aftermath of a disaster, a company's care team may step up to do the things you're not physically, emotionally, or mentally ready to do for yourself.

Some plane crashes may make you terrified any plane you get one will crash. Only one may scare you into worrying the roof of your airplane may rip right off in midflight.

What's the worst day at work you've ever had? It probably wasn't nearly as bad as what happened to one Louisiana oil rig's employees in November of 1980.

One can only imagine how scary the scene might be for two small children. The village they hid in was being destroyed by explosions and gunfire. A strange man swore he would protect them and carry them to safety. As he attempted to take them away, the enemy's helicopter hovered overhead, men firing off guns from both sides. Luckily, it was all fake. The terrifying scene was a sequence being filmed for "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Everything was perfectly safe ... until it wasn't.

In the early 1990s, the country of Rwanda struggled through growing tensions between the local ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus led the government, while the Tutsis were targets of harrassment and discrimination. Over the course of a hundred days in 1994, those tensions would erupt in fear, violence, desperation, and genocide.

Some plane crashes have possible causes which are so out of the ordinary they stretch the limits of credulity. The accident which happened when a plane fell from the sky while attempting to land in the Democratic Republic on the Congo in 2010 is just such a crash.

The black servicemen who loaded munitions onto ships at Port Chicago Naval Magazine knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. They were hardly trained, rushed to load ships heading for the Pacific theater in World War II, and feared every day that this might be the day one dropped bomb blew them all to smithereens. On July 17, 1944, Port Chicago's number finally came up. But the tragedy which occurred there was not the end of the story. 

He was a teacher and a veteran. On August 20, 1982, an argument over a badly repaired lawnmower motor from the previous day would result in a massacre which left eight dead.

Sometimes when planes crash, it's due to the tiniest hidden flaw which causes incredible amounts of destruction after a series of one mishap after another. One microscopic flaw led to the failure of the tail-mounted engine on a DC-10, and the damage it caused ended with an incredible fiery crash caught on camera.

In wartime, terrible loss of life is expected - but usually not due to a series of ridiculous screw-ups. On January 31, 1918, a fleet from the British Royal Navy left a Scottish port in the Firth of Forth with the intention of leaving for exercises in the North Sea. But among that fleet were multiple K-class submarines, a sub notorious for its flaws, its bad luck, and its short history of deadly accidents.

Working on an oil rig in the North Sea has its frustrations, its problems, and its dangers. In July of 1988, employees on the Piper Alpha platform were looking forward to having to work around construction as problem areas in the rig were updated - paint to be applied, sprinkler heads to be unclogged, and a broken safety valve to be fixed and replaced. In the end, a series of lapses and mistakes would lead to the deadliest oil rig disaster in history.

In most cases, we can trust the ground beneath our feet. We expect it to be solid, to hold firm, and to not move when we stand on it. Some places we can expect earthquakes, but most of the time we don't expect to look out the window and see the very land we've gotten used to outside every day slamming down toward our homes.

When someone says a mass shooter was "going postal," the term goes back to a series of workplace shootings in the United States postal service going back to the mid-1980s. The deadliest of those took place in Edmond, Oklahoma, when an unsettling middle-aged man walked into work on August 20, 1986, with three guns in his mailbag.

Until September 11, 2001, one aviation accident between two 747s was the deadliest aircraft crash by far, and only one of the planes just barely managed to make it off the ground. On March 27, 1977, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, one after another, leading to a deadly crash which left one group of prospective vacationers scrambling to escape a burning wreck.

Imagine you went to work every day terrified today would be the day the building would fall down around your ears. That was what it was like working in the CTV Building in Christchurch, New Zealand. Then in September of 2010, the earthquakes began. As each aftershock rocked the building, it grew closer and closer to the day when its weakened shell would finally crumble.

Yaroslav Kudrinsky was just taking his two kids on their first international vacation. But there was one notable aspect to their trip - Kudrinsky would be flying the plane. Captain Kudrinsky was part of the flight crew flying one of the company's new Airbus A310s to Hong Kong. What harm could it do to let his kids come into the cockpit and see the new plane their dad would be in charge of flying?

We all know what it's like when there's a bug going around. More than a few people call in sick from work. Every time you cough someone says, "Oh, my sister just had that." When you go to the pharmacy, all of the medicines you need are sold out. In Milwaukee in 1993, it wasn't a bug that was making the rounds, it was a parasite, once which wrecked havoc to the intestinal tracts of those who caught it.

It was just supposed to be a fun night of dancing to a jazz orchestra just like every other Friday in West Plains, Missouri. But on a rainy Friday the 13th in April of 1928, a dangerous secret lurked in the garage on the first floor, one which threatened the lives of every happy dancer on the second floor on the building.

In 2014, one South Korean high school sent its students off on a trip to the resort island of Jeju. The kids could have fun with one another and take a little break. But on the morning they were to arrive in Jeju, one wrong move by the helmsman shoved them into a steadily worsening nightmare.

Who doesn't enjoy a good haunted house? Six Flags Great Adventure had one such haunted house in 1984. The Haunted Castle contained a winding corridor of spooky sights, flashing lights, and costumed actors ready to give you a fright. On May 11, 1984, it added eight more ghosts to its cast.

Most of us have jobs, and whether they be our dream jobs or just something to pay the bills we just hope that when we go to work, we stay safe. But on April 24, 2013, garment workers at factories located in an eight-story building in Bangladesh started their workday nervous. The electricity went out, then the generators kicked in. Not long after that, the building collapsed, trapping thousands inside the debris.

You don't expect a lake to just explode. But in 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon did exactly that on a hot August night, sending a jet of water skyward. The water wasn't the problem, however. The real problem was a mysterious something which killed over 1700 people and thousands of head of livestock.

On a hot summer night in 2015, a water park near Taipei hosted a party which drew thousands looking for a good time. But the party included an added ingredient which threatened the lives of hundreds of attendees.

On September 1, 2004, hundreds of students of all ages arrived with their families at School No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania, Russia for the start of the school year. The first day of school was a celebration punctuated with music, poems, and videos. But this year would be different. This year's Day of Knowledge festivities, however, wouldn't end in the first ringing of the school bell, but with gunshots.

When the woman cried out, what she said was, "Fight!" But what the congregation of Shiloh Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, heard that Friday night in 1902 was, "Fire!" The panicked crowd rushed for the front door, and within ten minutes dozens would die - all because of a misheard word.

Imagine what you could do when you were seventeen. Would you have been able to handle surviving a plane crash in the middle of nowhere? Or would you have been able to get up after the crash and start walking toward where help will hopefully be, even if it meant walking for ten straight days? One teenage girl did just that, and became the sole survivor of a plane crash over the Peruvian jungle.

Fifteen years ago this week, one of the deadliest shipwrecks ever happened just off the coast of western Africa. The MV Le Joola was an integral part of life in Senegal. The ferry regularly traveled along the coastline between the capital of Dakar and the city of Ziguinchor in the southern Casamance region, an area nearly cut off from the rest of Senegal by an ongoing civil war, a lack of riches, and the obstruction that was the long thin strip of the Gambia. When it sank, it took over eighteen hundred people down with it.

It started with an argument, the kind of argument you might see at any nightclub or bar on any given night. A man tried to get his ex-girlfriend to give him another chance. She told him no. Angry, he made a grab for her. One of the bouncers saw, and the man ended up kicked out on the street. But within a half an hour he'd return -- this time with a gallon jug of gasoline and a pair of matches.

Something was burning down by the Texas City waterfront on April 16, 1947. Everyone in the growing town built on the petrochemical industry could see the plumes of smoke billowing upward from whatever was on fire. There was just one strange thing -- the smoke was bright orange. The curious sight drew many people down to the north slip at the docks to what was going on, a site which would soon turn into the most dangerous spot they could be.

In part two of our AIDS epidemic series, we look at the misinformation and bigotry which negatively impacted the struggle to identify and fight the virus. This includes the misleading story of "Patient Zero," and the Reagan administration's highly problematic view of the disease from the very start.

This weekend, Hurricane Harvey struck the east coast of Texas and flooded the city of Houston. A hundred and seventeen years ago this week, a similar storm was headed straight for the nearby city of Galveston, one of the richest cities in the country. What followed was a deadly disaster which surprised Galveston and left thousands dead in its wake.

Who wouldn't like to go on a sightseeing flight? Have a glass of champagne, mingle with your fellow sightseers, and peer down in wonder at the glorious sights below. But for Air New Zealand Flight 901, the November 28, 1979, flight wouldn't end with a cheery goodbye to Antarctica and a swift turnaround back to Auckland, but in a smoldering pile of wreckage on the slopes of Mount Erebus.

In this short first entry in our series on the AIDS epidemic, we see the very beginnings of the AIDS virus -- not in the late 1970s, but in a jungle in Cameroon at the turn of the 20th century. We also look at a few early cases of HIV infection prior to the epidemic's explosion.

Most of us have been to a sporting event at one time or another in our lives. In this day and age, we can spot the safety improvements which have been added the stadiums and arenas due to tragedies which struck in the past: fire doors with lit EXIT signs overhead; stadiums made of concrete, steel, and plastic rather than wood; sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers in multiple locations. One of the tragedies which led to more thorough precautions being taken in stadiums in Great Britain started with a dropped cigarette during a football match and ended with 56 dead.

It's 1925 and you leave the house on a Wednesday morning three weeks before Easter ready to go to work delivering mail in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. While passing near a rural field in your horse and buggy, you see the telltale swirl of a newly formed tornado touching down. But what you and no one else in the Midwest know is that you just saw the birth of the deadliest tornado in American history.

The San Francisco-Oakland area had baseball fever. Both of their teams -- the Giants and the Athletics respectively -- would go up against one another in Game Three of the "Battle of the Bay" World Series. People across the country tuned in at 5:00 PM local time to watch the pre-game with announcers Al Michaels and Tim McCarver. But four minutes later, the video and audio would both abruptly cut out. Then Al Michaels' voice could be heard saying something which shocked the audience: "Tell you what, I think we're having an earth--"

It was always busy at the McDonald's restaurant on San Ysidro Boulevard. Kids invaded the play area whether or not they'd eaten in the restaurant, and for people arriving from the Tijuana border crossing only a mile south, the golden arches were like a welcome friends greeting them hello as they arrived in America. But on July 18, 1984, a stranger walked into the restaurant armed to the teeth, ready to finally end the battle in his mind.

You're the engineer on an empty troop train in the middle of the night in 1918, headed west to pick up more soldiers meant to head off to the war in Europe. You've had little sleep but you've eaten well and taken some pills for your kidneys. Almost all of the rest of the crew are back in the caboose -- perhaps playing cards or sleeping, with no passengers to tend to. You are alone, and after a while the movement of the train rocks you right to sleep. So you don't see the circus train cars on the tracks in front of you, not until it's too late.

They say God never gives you more than you can handle. On January 13, 1982, He sure as hell attempted to do so to the city of Washington, DC. Snow cascaded from the sky, making driving home from work to the suburbs a treacherous undertaking. At National Airport, an Air Florida flight with a crew inexperienced in flying under winter conditions waited impatiently for takeoff. And underneath the city, an improperly closed rail switch and a subway train packed to the gills would have a devastating introduction to one another.

The harrowing video aired on a loop around the world -- a passenger airliner gliding down toward the sea near a tourist-filled beach, then tumbling over and over as it struck the water. What happened in Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 in the hours prior to its crash into the sea near the Comoros Islands required bravery, quick patience, and resourcefulness out of pilot Leul Abate -- and more than a little bit of luck. (My apologies for any audio issues. I had some microphone problems this week.)

On the last day of Pride in 1973, the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans felt like it always did. The Sunday beer bust was in full swing, patrons were discussing an upcoming charity event, and the gay bar repeatedly busted out their anthem, "United We Stand." When the downstairs buzzer rang, one of the regulars went to open the door to the stairwell to see who it was. It wasn't a person, though. It was an inferno.

The name conjures up images of the bare skeleton of a ghost town, swallowed in smoke and haunted by the spirits of its past. But Centralia was once a normal small Pennsylvania town full of hard-working Americans who just wanted to live safely in their homes. The few who still live there still feel the same way.

It towered over Commercial Street in the North End of Boston, its massive form looming over the elevated train tracks and Engine #31 firehouse. It groaned loudly every time it was filled, its contents leaking in an absurd mockery of bleeding. It wordlessly threatened for years to collapse. Finally, on January 15, 1919, it spilled its contents onto the neighborhood -- 2.3 million gallons of molasses.

Heavy rains soaked the Norwegian Labour Party's youth camp on Utøya that Friday in July of 2011. What might have otherwise been a miserable day was lightened by a visit from former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The campers -- all smart, capable, and eager to change the world -- could deal with a little rain if it meant meeting one of their idols. But after she left the island, they started to receive texts. A bomb had exploded in Oslo. As terrifying as it was, though, they all felt safe on Utøya.

Dust seems so harmless most of the time ... annoying, sure, but not deadly. However, on December 22, 1977, dust would lead to the sudden and tragic destruction of a Louisiana grain elevator, taking the lives of 36 people only days before Christmas. However, theirs was not the only facility to suffer an explosion that week, or even that day.

Creeping tendrils of smoke particles and sulfur dioxide wound their way through the fog already blanketing London on the evening of December 5, 1952. When it infiltrated the harmless fog, those dangerous invaders turned the mist into a lethal smog so thick you couldn't see an inch in front of you. Thousands would die before anyone would realize the effects of the smog on Londoners.

In the vein of My Favorite Murder, this episode features one of Jennifer's hometown murders: a mass shooting which happened at a time when mass shootings were still fairly uncommon. They were an unlikely family: one man, four women, and their children living together in a crowded home in Wilkes-Barre, PA. But one of them was suffering from the effects of a crumbling mind, and on September 25, 1982, that mind disintegrated into violence.(Trigger warning for the deaths of children.)

The Halloween party thrown by the Macedonian Association in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1998 was a popular event -- far too popular. Teenagers crammed in shoulder to shoulder with barely enough room to dance. Everyone wanted to get in, but some who couldn't wanted to get back at those who had. What followed sent a horrified shockwave through Sweden.

It was a beautiful day to visit Kings Island in Ohio, and church groups poured from buses to enjoy the rides and games. One of those groups, the Radcliff Assembly of God and their friends, would travel home that night on a school bus with a fatal flaw. Everything would come to a head when a drunk driver heading the wrong way down Interstate 71 emerged from the darkness right in front of them.

August 31, 1986, was a beautiful day to fly the skies over the neighborhood of Cerritos in Los Angeles. William Kramer was on his way to Big Bear Lake in his Piper Cherokee with his wife and daughter. Aeromexico Flight 498 was about to land after a morning of stops across Mexico. Neither plane saw what was about to happen -- nor did those readying for a lovely Labor Day weekend below.

Marten Hartwell was a bush pilot in the wilds of northern Canada tasked with an emergency medivac flight to Yellowknife. He and his three passengers never made it. But Hartwell did end up rescued alive from the wilderness a month later, and with a harrowing story to tell.

The morning of January 12, 1888, towns across the Great Plains of the United States encountered relatively warm weather for an area experiencing a frigid winter. But the afternoon would bring a nasty surprise at about the same time as children were being let out of school for the day. A ferocious blizzard raced across the plains like a stampeding horse, moving with supernatural speed and swallowing those outside at the time whole before they even knew what was happening.

This week, Jennifer found a wine she likes (a first!) so she's taking a break from researching the next episode to watch Dante's Peak, where everything is made up and the facts don't matter. Except for Pierce Brosnan being a gorgeous magical creature. That always matters.

Sunday dawned warm and sunny in the Cascade mountain range. Hikers and fishermen savored the beautiful weather that morning, sure they were far from the danger they knew had been rumbling for weeks now. But at 8:32 AM on May 18, 1980, an earthquake shuddered through Mount St. Helens which triggered the massive volcanic eruption which everyone had been waiting for -- and yet, in at least one major way, almost no one saw coming.

When LaMia Flight 2933 crashed in Colombia in November, the possible causes echoed a crash which occurred almost twenty-seven years ago in New York. Avianca Flight 52 came down on a slope in Cove Neck, Long Island in comparative silence, not bursting into flames as happens in so many crashes. The reasons why would lead to the industry considering the flaws in communication that can happen between flight crews and air traffic controllers.

On December 6, 1989, a man carrying a dark plastic bag containing a long object walked into the main building of Ecole Polytechnique, a suicide note in his pocket and hate for women in his heart. An hour and a half later he and fourteen women would be dead, inspiring changes in Canadian gun laws.

Love Parade was meant to be a celebration of peace, love, and understanding. The German electronic music festival was known for loud techno, colorful costumes, and sexual openness. But in 2010, the enormous event at an old freight station in Duisburg, Germany, ended with 21 people dead in a crushing incident on an entrance ramp.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the tragic events in the quaint mining town of Aberfan in south Wales. Days of heavy rain and an underground spring combined to turn a hillside tip into a dark sludge which slid down and plowed through the Pantglas Junior School, taking away a generation of the town's children.

On this episode, Jennifer uses the Movie Break she saved up for a special occasion to cap off a ridiculously awful week and watch "Airplane vs. Volcano." Keep liquor and the Internet Movie Database handy. If you can pronounce the name of the Icelandic volcano by the end of the episode, you're a better person than Jennifer.

Texas A&M's annual bonfire was meant to symbolize their burning desire to beat the hell out of the University of Texas at Austin's football team. But in 1999, Bonfire never burned. Instead it collapsed underneath the feet of several dozen students working to build the stack at the time, putting all of their lives at risk.

The worst single-plane loss of life in aviation history occurred on August 12, 1985, when a 747 loaded with holiday travelers crashed in the mountains near Mt. Fuji. The reason: A simple repair with a dangerous flaw.

At first, people who wandered over from Washington Square Park thought someone was throwing sack of shirtwaists out of the ninth floor windows of the Asch Building. But it quickly became apparent to the watching New Yorkers that these weren't bags of the Triangle Factory's finished products -- they were women. These young women had no other option, caught between the raging inferno blowing through the factory on March 25, 1911, and the ninth-story drop in front of them.

When children die in a disaster, it's the worst of tragedies. When children die due to the diabolical work of a man with dark intentions, it's even worse. May 18, 1927, was a typical spring day in Bath, Michigan, until a pair of explosions broke the day apart. One set the Kehoe farm alight. The other struck the Bath Consolidated School with devastating consequences.

Keren and Assaf Dror thought May 24, 2001 would be the happiest day of their lives, and it was -- up until the floor collapsed at the wedding hall where hundreds of friends and family were dancing together in celebration.

Captain Carlos Dardano and his crew performed an exceptional feat of airmanship when their brand-new 737 lost both engines while landing over New Orleans during a violent thunderstorm.

For fuck's sake, Jolene. Jennifer revisits the "let's watch a nice educational TV movie about what'll happen when the Russians nuke us" genre by watching "The Day After." You know, the cheerful one.

Released in 1976, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot told the tragic story of the sudden loss in a November storm of a freighter hauling iron ore pellets to Detroit. The SS Edmund Fitzgerald went down with a loss of 29 crewmen and left an enduring mystery of what may have really happened in its final moments.

On September 13, 1987, two thieves in the city of Goiania in Brazil sneaked into what was left of an abandoned clinic and stole what they thought was simply scrap metal they could sell for a few extra bucks. Instead, their theft led to a radioactive disaster the effects of which still impact the people and city of Goiania to this day.

It's one of the biggest American disasters you may never have heard of. On April 23, 1940, over 200 people died when the Rhythm Club caught fire in Natchez, Mississippi. But one of the most lethal fires America's ever seen has slipped through the cracks of history. (TW: This episode also features discussion of the tragic Pulse shooting in Orlando this past weekend.)

When a plane went down in the Santa Clara Mountains in California in December 1987, only the smallest of clues were left behind for the NTSB and FBI to piece together to find out what (or who) killed 43 people.

This week, Jennifer takes an episode off and stays sober to watch "Twister," because who needs to get drunk when you've got magical tank tops, slightly less creepy than normal clown dolls, and omnipotent cell phones?

The Port Arthur historical site in Tasmania is a beautiful place with a tragic history tied into Australia's founding by shipping convicts into the country. The penal colony at Port Arthur saw suffering, violence, and grief, but over a hundred and fifty years since its inception, that was in its distant past ... at least, until April 28th, 1996.

Over nine hundred men, women, and children died in 1978 in a small settlement in Guyana established by the People Temple, a church which presented itself as representing the ideals of racial equality, social justice, support of the elderly and children, and other seemingly positive issues. But behind the scenes, the machinations of "Father" Jim Jones led to sexual assault, violence, manipulation, and ultimately mass suicide.

Fifteen seconds of sparks given off by pyrotechnic gerbs, two different layers of flammable soundproofing foam, no sprinklers, obstructed exits, and a panicked crowd combined to leave 100 concertgoers dead at the Station Nightclub in West Warwick, RI, on February 20, 2003.

"Rugby players eat their dead." Spotting this bumper sticker encouraged director Frank Marshall to take on the film version of "Alive," the book by Piers Paul Read about the crash of Flight 571. After the plane went down in the Andes on Friday the 13th of October, 1972, the members and supporters of the Old Christians rugby club who survived faced an impossible choice: whether or not to eat the only food available, the bodies of their dead friends. (TW: Discussion of cannibalism.)

Jennifer takes a break from the usual podcast to drink a few hard root beers and talk about one of her favorite movies of all time, "The Poseidon Adventure." In this episode, she talks about the plot hole that eats characters in the original book, emergency hot pants in the 1972 film, and Fergie paying the mortgage in the early-2000s remake. (TW: Discussion of rape as a plot point in one part of the episode.)

When the Kansas City Hyatt Regency opened in 1980, its beautiful atrium with walkways which appeared to float on air impressed the entire city. But in July of 1981, the skywalk's fine reputation came crashing down - literally.

Every year, Western Electric contracted excursion boats to take employees to the annual picnic, from Chicago to Michigan City, IN. In July of 1915, one ship would never leave the wharf.

On April 15, 1989, thousands of British football fans flocked to Sheffield to see the F.A. Cup semi-final game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Ninety-six never made it home.

On July 6, 1944, thousands of people arrived at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, CT, to enjoy the festivities. Then the sidewall caught fire.

Welcome to the first episode of "Disaster Area," a podcast focusing on disasters throughout history. In this initial episode, host Jennifer Matarese introduces herself, shares what she will and won't be discussing in each episode, and gives some idea of which disasters will be analyzed in future episodes.