Showing results for "Disasters and History" in Biographies & Memoirs

Bloody history and bloodier crimes. Andrew takes a weekly look at all things bloody. From natural disasters to man made atrocities

Washington, DC, was in the grips of a historic snowstorm on January 13, 1982 that gridlocked the city when Air Florida 90 crashes into a bridge jammed with traffic and plunges into the iced-over Potomac River. 6 people survive the crash, clinging to wreckage in the icy river as a Park Police helicopter risks a daring rescue in nearly whiteout conditions. As the rescue is taking place, DC’s Metro system suffers its first fatal derailment nearby, with dozens injured.

On January 12, 2010, a major earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and the greater part of the capital was demolished. Dr. Paul Farmer, U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, who had worked in the country for nearly thirty years treating infectious diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS, and former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, had just begun to work on an extensive development plan to improve living conditions in Haiti.

A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut Death in the Air is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. London was still recovering from the devastation...

Just after midnight on October 9, 2017, as one of the nation's deadliest firestorms swept over California's Wine Country, hundreds of elderly residents from two posh senior living facilities were caught in its path. The frailest were blind, in wheelchairs, or diagnosed with dementia, and their community quickly transformed from a palatial complex that pledged to care for them to one that threatened to entomb them. The rescue of the final 105 seniors left behind on an inflamed hillside depended not on employees, but strangers whose lives intersected in a riveting tale of terror and heroism.

Volcanoes have fascinated - and terrified - people for ages. They have destroyed cities and ended civilizations. In this book, John Dvorak, the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms, looks into the early years of volcanology and its "father", Thomas Jaggar. Jaggar was the youngest of five scientists to investigate the explosion of Mount Pelee in Martinique, which leveled the entire city of St. Pierre and killed its entire population in two minutes.

“An intense, immersive deep dive into a wild, dangerous, and unknown world, written with the pace and appeal of a great thriller. This is nonfiction at its very best.”—Lee Child The true story of two doomed ships and a daring search-and-rescue operation that shines a light on the elite...

A chronicle of life on the resplendent island. Adele Barker and her son, Noah, settled into the central highlands of Sri Lanka for an 18-month sojourn, immersing themselves in the customs, cultures, and landscapes of the island: its elephants, birds, and monkeys; its hot curries and sweet mangoes; the cacophony of its markets; the resonant evening chants from its temples. When, having returned home to Tucson, Barker awakes on December 26, 2004, to see televised images of the island's southern shore disappearing into the ocean, she decides she must go back.

A century of the industrial age saw unprecedented leaps in technology and engineering, from the first flight of an airplane to the first flight of humans to the moon. But alongside these awe-inspiring achievements were horrible disasters caused by faulty engineering or careless judgement. Catastrophes and Heroes explores eight such disasters and recognizes the unheralded heroes who stepped up to save others in times of great danger.

On January 12, 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck the nation least prepared to handle one. Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral first-hand account, Katz takes readers inside the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and through the monumental--yet misbegotten--rescue effort that followed.

Dive into a riveting exploration of one of historys most catastrophic maritime tragedies. This account is meticulously crafted from firsthand testimonies of survivors, providing an authentic glimpse into the harrowing events surrounding the Titanic disaster and other great sea calamities.

Are you Marked Safe? Join friends Brianne and Melanie as they come together to share some of the worlds most incredible disaster stories and delve into the details and fallout from them.

In the middle of the night on June 24, 2021, a 12-story section of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex roared to the ground, killing 98 people in Surfside, Florida. Collapse: Disaster in Surfside is a 12-part investigative and narrative reporting project featuring the Pulitzer-Prize-winning coverage of the Miami Herald in collaboration with Treefort Media. We’re talking with survivors, witnesses, experts, first responders, and journalists, to get the whole story of Surfside. How the building went up, and why it went down. We’re piecing together 911 calls, police body camera ...

Disaster Queen is a podcast about the world's greatest disasters, past and present. Learn about these fascinating disasters, whether act of God, act of man, or accident. Host Jenny Rapson, the Disaster Queen, covers what happened, why it happened, and the people whose lives were forever changed by these disasters. Episodes drop every-other-Thursday beginning June 1, 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Diving deep into man-made disasters. Accidents don't just happen. Here we explore the failures that lead to industrial accidents, aviation crashes, building collapses, and more.

Join hosts Shelly Price and Stephanie Hubka as they take a weekly look at the facts, details, and surprises behind some of the disasters that occur at 35,000 feet.

A podcast about disasters and the music they make us listen to.