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 ...
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 starte...
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 wh...
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...
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 i...
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 ...
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.
