In the first in this five-part series, we look at the town of Uvalde, and the first moments before a normal school day goes from calm to terrifying.

Videos:

• Frontline: Inside the Uvalde Response
• Frontline: After Uvalde: Guns, Grief, and Texas Politics
• Cell phone video of the parents imploring the police to do something
• Disturbing new footage shows Salvador Ramos in Uvalde school, cops running | New York Post
• Ballistic Gel Human Head VS 223
• Video: Greg Abbott and Beto O’Rourke clash over Uvalde deaths as governor provides more details on school shooting

Articles and books:

• Before the school shooting, Uvalde was known for a 1970 Hispanic student walkout. Its aging participants fear its spirit and memory are fading.
• Timeline of the events leading up to, including, and following the attack on Robb Elementary
• Department of Justice: Critical Incident Review
• Uvalde buries 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, the first of many funerals to come
• Texas cops’ claims unravel: Police didn’t "engage" Uvalde shooter — but they cuffed scared parents
• Gunman bought two rifles, hundreds of rounds in days before massacre
• Uvalde: 90 minutes of terror, a failed police response and shattered trust
• Mom who saved her kids from Uvalde school shooting says police are targeting her
• NRA holds convention in Houston days after Texas school shooting
• Before massacre, Uvalde gunman frequently threatened teen girls online
• The Pulitzer Prize: The Washington Post's winning 2023 series on the damage caused by AR-15s
• Nearly two years after the Uvalde massacre, here’s who has been reprimanded and where investigations stand
• Uvalde school shooter’s self-proclaimed ex accused of making threats against the community
• Uvalde victim's uncle elected to school board nearly two years after shooting
• Uvalde mayor abruptly resigns ahead of a council vote on shooting report
• 21 lives lost: Uvalde victims were a cross-section of a small, mostly Latino town in South Texas
• Teenage cousin of Uvalde school shooter arrested and accused of threatening to do 'the same thing'
• Uvalde schools hire — and then fire — former DPS trooper under investigation for shooting response
• The Gunman in Uvalde Left Multiple Hints Before His Attack Began

A year ago this week, I covered the Amagasaki train derailment in 2005 in Japan. Why not cover a second one seven years earlier near a small town in Germany?

Videos:

• Seconds from Disaster: The Eschede derailment
• TS2018 Rail Disasters - Derailment at High Speed (1998 Eschede train disaster)
• What Went Wrong: Countdown to Catastrophe: The Eschede Disaster

Articles and books:

• Page about the Eschede train disaster memorial
• Germany recalls the Eschede train disaster
• The Cost of Comfort: The 1998 Eschede Train Derailment

It's early in the morning on a Tuesday when you're awakened by the shaking of your bed, of your entire home. You think for a moment it's the end of the world. You and your family make it out of your home, even though so many others do not. For a moment, you think you are safe. Then, you smell smoke.

Videos:

• A Trip Down Market Street, San Francisco - April 14th, 1906

• Disaster by the Bay: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

• The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Documentary

• Footage of San Francisco's 1906 quake as it occurred

• San Francisco after the devastating earthquake in 1906 like you've never seen before in color! [HD]

Articles and books:

• The San Francisco Earthquake: A Minute-by-Minute Account of the 1906 Disaster, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts

• The Museum of the City of San Francisco: Timeline of the San Francisco Earthquake, April 18 - 23, 1906, along with a timeline of the graft investigation

It's early in the morning on a Tuesday when you're awakened by the shaking of your bed, of your entire home. You think for a moment it's the end of the world. You and your family make it out of your home, even though so many others do not. For a moment, you think you are safe. Then, you smell smoke.

Videos:

• A Trip Down Market Street, San Francisco - April 14th, 1906

• Disaster by the Bay: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

• The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Documentary

• Footage of San Francisco's 1906 quake as it occurred

• San Francisco after the devastating earthquake in 1906 like you've never seen before in color! [HD]

Articles and books:

• The San Francisco Earthquake: A Minute-by-Minute Account of the 1906 Disaster, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts

• The Museum of the City of San Francisco: Timeline of the San Francisco Earthquake, April 18 - 23, 1906, along with a timeline of the graft investigation

It's early in the morning on a Tuesday when you're awakened by the shaking of your bed, of your entire home. You think for a moment it's the end of the world. You and your family make it out of your home, even though so many others do not. For a moment, you think you are safe. Then, you smell smoke.

Videos:

• A Trip Down Market Street, San Francisco - April 14th, 1906
• Disaster by the Bay: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
• The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Documentary
• Footage of San Francisco's 1906 quake as it occurred
• San Francisco after the devastating earthquake in 1906 like you've never seen before in color! [HD]

Articles and books:

• The San Francisco Earthquake: A Minute-by-Minute Account of the 1906 Disaster, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts
• The Museum of the City of San Francisco: Timeline of the San Francisco Earthquake, April 18 - 23, 1906, along with a timeline of the graft investigation

The deadliest fire in American history happened not in Chicago, but in a small Wisconsin town to the north of Chicago on the exact same day - October 8th, 1871.

Videos:

• Watch now: The story of the tabernacle in the Peshtigo Fire

• Lake Michigan shipwreck; sank during 1871 Peshtigo Fire

Articles and books:

• Firestorm at Peshtigo, by Denise Gess and William Lotz

• The Great Midwest Wildfires of 1871

• Wisconsin Shipwrecks: The George L. Newman

On April 9th, 1963, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thresher departed Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for depth tests in the Atlantic. It would never return.

Videos:

• Second Saturday: The Loss of the USS Thresher
• Finding the Titanic | Bob Ballard: An Explorer’s Life

Articles and books:

• U.S. Naval Institute: What Killed the Thresher?
• Arlington National Cemetery: USS Thresher memorial
• Titanic Discovery was By-Product of Military Quest
• The Death of the USS Thresher: The Story Behind History's Deadliest Submarine Disaster, by Norman Polmar
• Navy documents reveal officer flagged "dangerous condition" before deadliest submarine disaster in U.S. history

The deadliest school fire in American history took place on - of all days - Ash Wednesday, March 8th, 1908, in the Cleveland suburb of Collinwood just after first period ended. Within a half hour, 172 students and three adults would be dead, or close to it.

Videos:

• Cleveland Public Library: Collinwood school fire

Articles and books:

• The Collinwood Tragedy: The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History, by James Jessen Badal
• The neighborhood never forgets
• Collinwood school fire: 100 years later, an angel still kneels over the children
• REMEMBERING THE LAKEVIEW SCHOOL FIRE (ALSO KNOWN AS COLLINWOOD SCHOOL FIRE)

Jennifer stops rewatching the movie long enough to review the movie. Spoilers ahead!

You'd think if your plane crashed fifty meters from the end of the runway, you'd be saved. You'd be wrong.

Videos:

• Disaster Breakdown: Locked into Disaster

Articles and books:

• The Lever of Death: The crash of Dan-Air flight 0034
• Department of Trade report on the accident