Catastrophic Calamities

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 sailors as they approached their home port. 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, sco...

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 the ground. 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 p...

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 seaboard of the United States. 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 scou...

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, because the epicenter was directly under a populated area. It did over $20 billion in damage and, more importantly, at least 60 people lost their lives—16 of them in one building. The official death toll stands at 61, with one...

 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 b...

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-cuttin...

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 b...

A Strategic Catastrophe Episode 6 The 1938 Yellow River Flood was a deliberate act by the Chinese Nationalist government to halt the Japanese advance. This "scorched earth" tactic caused a catastrophic "long death" for hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians through drowning, famine, and disease, lasting nine years. It remains one of history's deadliest man-made environmental disasters. Catastr...

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 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 CA...