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Catastrophic Calamities

Catastrophic Calamities

Written by: Pulpular Media
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About this listen

 Telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries.

What could go wrong? Everything!

Dedicated to the memory of Founding Producer Susan Ferman.Copyright Pulpular Media Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • The 1871 Chicago FIre

    The 1871 Chicago FIre
    Dec 5 2025
    Ashes and Ambition

    In October 1871, Chicago was America's fastest-growing city—and a tinderbox waiting to ignite. When flames erupted in a small barn on DeKoven Street, a perfect storm of drought, wind, and wooden infrastructure transformed a neighborhood fire into an urban apocalypse. Through the eyes of eyewitness Frank Loesch, we follow 100,000 refugees fleeing through darkness as their city burns, watch limestone melt like paste, and hear a courthouse bell scream its death song. But this isn't just a story of destruction—it's the birth of the modern American city. From the ashes rose steel skyscrapers, professional fire codes, and a new vision of urban life. The mystery of how it started remains unsolved. How it changed everything is undeniable.

    Catastrophic Calamities is a creation of Richard O Jones and Pulpular Media.

    We invite you to tune in to our flagship podcast TRUE CRIME HISTORIAN with tales of the scandals, scoundrels, and scourges of the past told through vintage newspaper accounts from the golden age of yellow journalism.

    If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!

    For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.


    This episode includes AI-generated content.
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    55 mins
  • The 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy

    The 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy
    Nov 18 2025
    December 3, 1984. Midnight. A toxic cloud escapes from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, and drifts over sleeping neighborhoods. Within hours, thousands are dead. By dawn, bodies litter the streets. This is the Bhopal Gas Tragedy—the worst industrial disaster in human history. But the dying didn't stop that night. Forty years later, the poison continues to kill. Corporate negligence, cost-cutting measures, and a conscious decision to hide critical safety warnings turned a chemical plant into a death factory. Justice remains elusive. The victims are still dying. And the lessons remain unlearned. This is their story.



    Catastrophic Calamities is a creation of Richard O Jones and Pulpular Media.

    We invite you to tune in to our flagship podcast TRUE CRIME HISTORIAN with tales of the scandals, scoundrels, and scourges of the past told through vintage newspaper accounts from the golden age of yellow journalism.

    If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!

    For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 2 mins
  • The 1915 Sultana Steamboat Disaster

    The 1915 Sultana Steamboat Disaster
    Nov 14 2025
    Episode 7 examines the deadliest maritime disaster in American history—a tragedy that killed more people than the Titanic, but one you've probably never heard of. The explosion and sinking of the steamboat Sultana on April 27, 1865 claimed between eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred lives. Nearly all of them were Union soldiers who'd survived the war, survived Confederate prison camps, only to be killed by the greed and corruption of their own side.

    This is the story of how bureaucratic greed turned a rescue mission into a mass grave.

    This is the story of the Sultana.

    Catastrophic Calamities is a creation of Richard O Jones and Pulpular Media.

    We invite you to tune in to our flagship podcast TRUE CRIME HISTORIAN with tales of the scandals, scoundrels, and scourges of the past told through vintage newspaper accounts from the golden age of yellow journalism.

    If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!

    For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.


    This episode includes AI-generated content.
    Show More Show Less
    54 mins
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