It should have just been a regular Saturday night dancing to rock music and having a good time at the relatively new dance hall outside of Saint-Laurent, France. But in the early morning hours of November 1st, 1970, what was likely one dropped match or cigarette turned the Club Cinq-Sept into an oven.

Videos:

• Pierre Montillo interview

• AP News clips of the fire

Articles and books:

• The worst thing is the sound of silence": 50 years after the "5-7" tragedy, the memory and the grief remain intact.

• Youth to Burn: Guy Debord on the fire at Saint-Laurent-du-Pont

• Virtual Globetrotting: Diagram of the layout of the Club Cinq-Sept

• France: An Unusual Silence

• 1970: Nightclub inferno 'wipes out generation'

It would start with a headache, a fever, maybe a funny tummy. But soon enough your knee would give out, or your arm would hang limp, or you would struggle to breathe. You'd be taken to the hospital, where you'd get your diagnosis - polio. If you survived, you ran the risk of doing so with paralyzed limbs, struggling to walk on bulky leg braces. Your parents would be terrified they might lose you, and so everybody wanted the one thing that could stop all of this - a vaccine.

Videos:

• New England Journal of Medicine: The Cutter Incident, 50 Years Later

• American Experience: The Polio Crusade

• The Iron Lung and Polio by M.Rockoff | OPENPediatrics

Articles and books:

• Polio: An American Story, by David M. Oshinsky

• The Cutter Incident, by Dr. Paul Offit

• NEJM: The Cutter Incident

It would start with a headache, a fever, maybe a funny tummy. But soon enough your knee would give out, or your arm would hang limp, or you would struggle to breathe. You'd be taken to the hospital, where you'd get your diagnosis - polio. If you survived, you ran the risk of doing so with paralyzed limbs, struggling to walk on bulky leg braces. Your parents would be terrified they might lose you, and so everybody wanted the one thing that could stop all of this - a vaccine.

Videos:

• New England Journal of Medicine: The Cutter Incident, 50 Years Later

• American Experience: The Polio Crusade

• The Iron Lung and Polio by M.Rockoff | OPENPediatrics

Articles and books:

• Polio: An American Story, by David M. Oshinsky

• The Cutter Incident, by Dr. Paul Offit

• NEJM: The Cutter Incident

NOTE: This was released in May of 2025, but due to life being what it is, I didn't get to finish the final two parts of the episode. So I am rereleasing this episode this week, and the next two weeks I will release the following two episodes. I have now officially backed myself in a corner and I simply MUST finish the episodes now.

It would start with a headache, a fever, maybe a funny tummy. But soon enough your knee would give out, or your arm would hang limp, or you would struggle to breathe. You'd be taken to the hospital, where you'd get your diagnosis - polio. If you survived, you ran the risk of doing so with paralyzed limbs, struggling to walk on bulky leg braces. Your parents would be terrified they might lose you, and so everybody wanted the one thing that could stop all of this - a vaccine.

Videos:

• New England Journal of Medicine: The Cutter Incident, 50 Years Later

• American Experience: The Polio Crusade

• The Iron Lung and Polio by M.Rockoff | OPENPediatrics

Articles and books:

• Polio: An American Story, by David M. Oshinsky

• The Cutter Incident, by Dr. Paul Offit

• NEJM: The Cutter Incident

2001 was not the only year in which something tragic occurred on September 11th. On that day in 1974, eighty-two people would board a plane from Charleston, South Carolina, to Charlotte, North Carolina. Only ten would survive.

Videos:

• 9/11/74: The Untold Story of Charlotte's Deadliest Plane Crash
• Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper's beautiful conversation about grief
• Talkative Pilots: Eastern Airlines Flight 212

Articles and books:

• A fiery plane crash on 9/11/74 changed Charleston forever. 50 years later, its scars linger.
• NTSB Crash Report for Eastern Airlines Flight 212
• Charlotte's deadliest plane crash has finally been memorialized after 51 years

King Henry I of England had grand plans for the future of his sole legitimate male heir, William Aetheling. None of those plans would come to pass.

Articles and books:

• The Sinking Of The White Ship 1120
• The White Ship, by Charles Spencer
• The Impact of the White Ship Disaster of 1120
• 900 years since the White Ship disaster
• How one catastrophic shipwreck sank a medieval dynasty
• Divers find The Tragic White Ship

On a cold April night in 1865, the calm across the waters of the Mississippi River was shattered by a sudden explosion - one which destroyed a steamboat and most of the Confederate POWs crowded on its decks.

Videos:

• Remember the Sultana
• The History Channel: The Sultana
• Part-Time Explorer: America's Worst Shipwreck

Articles and books:

• Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History, by Alan Huffman
• Knoxville, TN: S.S. Sultana Memorial
• Appomattox Court House: The Surrender Meeting
• American Battlefield Trust: The Sultana Disaster
• The Sultana Disaster Museum
• Toledo Blade: The Sinking of the Sultana

On a cold April night in 1865, the calm across the waters of the Mississippi River was shattered by a sudden explosion - one which destroyed a steamboat and most of the Confederate POWs crowded on its decks.

Videos:

• Remember the Sultana
• The History Channel: The Sultana
• Part-Time Explorer: America's Worst Shipwreck

Articles and books:

• Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History, by Alan Huffman
• Knoxville, TN: S.S. Sultana Memorial
• Appomattox Court House: The Surrender Meeting
• American Battlefield Trust: The Sultana Disaster
• The Sultana Disaster Museum
• Toledo Blade: The Sinking of the Sultana

It's the podcast's tenth birthday! Also, where we've been and where we're going.

In the early morning hours of September 22nd, 1993, a cross-country train departed from Mobile, Alabama, on its way to Miami. As it headed up along the train tracks out of the city, the train didn't know one important thing - that half of the bridge over the Big Bayou Canot wasn't there anymore.

Videos:

• Seconds from Disaster: The Wreck of the Sunset Limited

• Forensic Files: Visibility Zero

• Rail Disasters: Wreck of the Sunset Limited

Articles and books:

• Barge Pilot Blamed in Fatal Amtrak Wreck

• No Criminal Liability Is Found in Amtrak Bayou Derailment

• Mobile Press-Register 200th Anniversary: Sunset Limited train wreck memories not diminished by passing years

• NTSB report on the accident