Fiery hot molasses floods the streets of Boston on this day in 1919, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. The molasses burst from a huge tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol Company building in the heart of the city. The United States Industrial Alcohol ...read more
The avalanche raced down a steep hill in Aberfan, Wales, sucking everything in its path into the chaos: landscape, buildings, an entire schoolhouse. When David Evans, the owner of a local pub, heard about it from a neighbor, he ran into the street. “Everything was so quiet, so ...read more
More than 500 French soldiers are killed when their train derails in Modane, France, on this day in 1917. The troops were returning from fighting World War I in Italy. There was ample warning that the conditions were dangerous, but the French officers ignored the expert advice ...read more
The ninth plague of Egypt was complete darkness that lasted for three days. But in 536 A.D., much of the world went dark for a full 18 months, as a mysterious fog rolled over Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia. The fog blocked the sun during the day, causing temperatures ...read more
Archaeologists have discovered an elaborate, perfectly preserved shrine in the wall of a house in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city on Italy’s western coast that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago by the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius. As many as 30,000 people are believed ...read more
It was 2004, the day after Christmas, and thousands of European and American tourists had flocked to the beaches of Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia to escape the winter chill in a tropical paradise. At 7:59 AM, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake—one of the largest ...read more
While Allied troops were fighting World War II in the Pacific, the U.S. homefront was defending Washington, D.C. from the worst flood it’d ever seen. “Spare no effort or expense to protect the Capital,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt told officials during the flood of October ...read more
A Category 4 storm that barreled into the Carolinas during the hurricane season of 1954 left a path of destruction that would eventually pave the way for the development of Myrtle Beach into a major tourist destination. As the first (and so far) only recorded Category 4 storm to ...read more
It took 18 days and the efforts of dozens of divers and rescue personnel, but 12 boys and their soccer coach were finallyrescued from the cave complex where they were trapped by floods during Thailand’s monsoon season. Here are five other dramatic rescues that were just as ...read more
Mother Nature can be merciless. From the churning hurricanes of the Gulf Coast, to the trailer-tossing storms of Tornado Alley, to the ground-pounding quakes of California, the United States is no stranger to deadly natural disasters. Here are five of the worst natural disasters ...read more
On April 25, 2014 officials from Flint, Michigan switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River as a cost-cutting measure for the struggling city. In doing so, they unwittingly introduced lead-poisoned water into homes, in what would become a massive public-health crisis. ...read more
A crocodile’s jaw crushes down on its victim with 3,700 pounds per square inch of force. That’s more than three-and-a-half times the bite of a lion and 25 times that of a human. Historically, crocodile attacks are 100 times deadlier than shark attacks—and far more ...read more
Chernobyl is a nuclear power plant located in Ukraine that was the site of a disastrous nuclear accident on April 26, 1986. A routine test at the power plant went horribly wrong, and two massive explosions blew the 1,000-ton roof off one of the plant’s reactors, releasing 400 ...read more
An estimated 100,000 people gathered at the dock in Belfast, Ireland on March 31, 1911, to watch the launch of the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic. Considered to be an “unsinkable” sink, Titanic was the largest and most luxurious cruise liner of its day, measuring more than 882 ...read more
The night of December 16, 1835 was frigid, so cold that the East River froze. Yet onlookers crowded on its banks in Brooklyn that night, watching New York burn down. As they watched, the city’s entire financial district went from the thriving center of American business to a ...read more
The Red Cross is an international humanitarian network founded in 1863 in Switzerland, with chapters worldwide that provide assistance to victims of disasters, armed conflict and health crises. The Red Cross’s roots date to 1859, when businessman Henry Dunant witnessed the ...read more
The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a manmade disaster that occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history until ...read more
Sometimes laws are passed with the stated goal of improving the whole of the United States, when really they’re just aimed at addressing one tiny issue. Such is the case with the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which received renewed scrutiny in September 2017 after Hurricane Maria ...read more
For years, the Gilded Age’s most powerful industrialists gathered at Lake Conemaugh, an idyllic body of water made possible by Pennsylvania’s South Fork Dam. Their secret retreat was a place to fish, hunt and consolidate their power. Until May 31, 1889, that is.That’s when a dam ...read more
Floods were considered a blessing by certain civilizations—the Egyptians relied on the Nile’s yearly overflow for fertile soil—but they also stand as some of history’s most devastating natural disasters. Whether due to heavy rains, storm surges or busted dams, deluges have often ...read more
The source of what became known as the “Great Molasses Flood” was a 50-foot-tall steel holding tank located on Commercial Street in Boston’s North End. Its sugary-sweet contents were the property of United States Industrial Alcohol, which took regular shipments of molasses from ...read more
Established around the first century B.C. as a Roman military colony, Florence became a cultural powerhouse between the 14th and 16th centuries, during the Renaissance period. The city was home to such luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo, ...read more
In the late 1950s, research branches of the U.S. military began monitoring solar activity and space weather, the disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere that can interfere with radio transmissions, power lines and other technologies. By the ‘60s, a special ...read more
