Relative Disasters

Latest Episodes:

The Byford Dolphin Explosive Decompression Incident of 1983 (Episode 127) Feb 12, 2024

Show notes

Another deep-sea oil rig, another disaster; in 1983, five saturation divers were killed when their air pressure was explosively decompressed. This episode covers a truly awful way to die.

The Montparnasse Derailment of 1895 (Episode 126) Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

How does a train wind up outside of its station, standing on its face? Well, the answer involves a perfect storm of operator negligence, bad brakes, and good ol' financial incentive.

The Toba Supereruption of 74TYA (Episode 125) Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

Greg and Child Unit A explore one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of all time, and why a simultaneous massive decrease in the human population may be a case of correlation, not causation.

The 1995 Sampoong Department Store Collapse (Episode 124) Jan 22, 2024

Show notes

On this episode, we're going to the city of Seoul to take a look at another example of how greed kills people. In 1988, a building was constructed to maximize profit and minimize expense; in 1995, its inevitable collapse caused the most non-wartime deaths South Korea has experienced. We'll talk about construction techniques, building codes, why regulations are important, and how to not move gigantic air conditioners.

The 1976 Ladybird Plague (Episode 123) Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

We're going to the dry and drought-blasted British Isles of 1976 for this (short) episode; we'll talk about ladybirds, the population boom-and-bust cycles of insect life, and how weird weather can throw an entire ecosystem into red-shelled chaos.

Conspiratorial Thinking (Episode 122) Jan 08, 2024

Show notes

To kick off our 2024 season, I thought we'd cover the insidious disaster that is Conspiratorial Thinking! We'll discuss how our brain can get short-circuited in the strangest ways, why it takes fear and lack of self-reflection skills to be a true believer... and why this stuff cannot be dismissed and how we can all do a better job of guarding ourselves against it.

Fun.

Sources:

Due to being available on a whole bunch of different platforms now, it's come to my attention that our Sources don't always make it to each listener at their preferred listening-platform; therefore, I'm going to be doing a better job of listing the complete sources in the episode itself.

The Star Wars Holiday Special (Episode 121) Dec 24, 2023

Show notes

Back in 1977, Star Wars was a phenomenon that changed the film industry. In 1978, some CBS executives tried to replicate the magic for TV and the results were... legendary? Just probably not in the way they intended.

Fuschia - The Man, The Color, the Mystery (Extended Sidebar 06) Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

Ella takes a dive into color theory and the bizarre history of Fuschia - the color and the man it was named for. And why it may not be a real color at all.

The Ourang Medan Ghost Ship (Extended Sidebar 05) Nov 27, 2023

Show notes

On this extended sidebar, Ella brings us the story of the Ourang Medan, a ghost ship found floating in the middle of the pacific with the entire crew dead. Or was it never found, its only survivor finding his way to a barely-inhabited atoll and living just long enough to relay how his whole crew had perished due to some unknown force? Or was it found in the straits of Indonesia, with the deceased crew all staring upward in abject horror? It's a creepy story with a fairly mundane truth living in its center.

Dock Ellis' 1970 No-Hitter (Extended Sidebar 04) Nov 13, 2023

Show notes

In this extended sidebar we talk about a baseball player at the absolute top of his game, one of the hardest feats in the game of baseball, why he was able to pull it off under the influence of LSD - and more importantly, the incredible work he did once his baseball career was behind him.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected