Catastrophic Calamities

 Ashes and AmbitionIn 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 s...

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...

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...

A Strategic CatastropheEpisode 6The 1938 Yellow River Flood was a deliberate act by the Chinese Nationalist government to halt the Japanese advance. This "scorched earth" tactic ca...

Details of the tragic Hartford Circus Fire, 1944.Catastrophic Calamities is a creation of Richard O Jones and Pulpular Media. We invite you to tune in to our flagship podcast TRUE ...

An exploration of the tragic wreck of the Iolaire, a wealthy man’s yacht turned into a transport ship that went aground on the rocks of the Outer Hebrides, killing at least 201 sai...

On the afternoon of July 9th, 1982, Pam Am Flight 759 suddenly fell from the sky into a residential subdivision in Kenner, LA, killing all 145 people on board and eight people on t...

It took systemic problems, design flaws and good old-fashioned human error to turn a minor mechanical function into an accident that could have wiped out the entire eastern seaboar...

The 6.7 Northridge Earthquake, followed by a 6.0 aftershock, less than a minute later, wasn't the biggest earthquake to hit Southern California, but it was one of the worst, becaus...