Disaster Area

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 America

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.