History's Greatest Dumpster Fires

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How does a guy who failed at farming, real estate, and running his family’s leather shop go on to turn the tide of the American Civil War in less than 24 hours? You get the wild, blood-soaked, and chaotic story of Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Shiloh!

In this episode of History’s Greatest Dumpster Fires, Ed and Kara break down how a man who was average (or below average) at nearly everything in life found his true calling in total wartime chaos. We explore the massive Union blunders of April 6, 1862—including ignored warnings, lack of entrenchments, and Confederate troops overrunning Union camps while breakfast was still cooking.

More importantly, we dive into the psychology of resilience: how Grant stayed ice-cold under pressure, weathered a brutal night in the pouring rain, and launched a ruthless Day Two counteroffensive on April 7th that permanently reshaped the Western Theater.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The Ultimate Underachiever: How Grant’s pre-war failures in business, farming, and West Point tactics set up his unique ability to handle high-stakes failure.
• The Rise to Command: Grant’s meteoric rise from an Illinois drill colonel to Brigadier General after taking Fort Henry and Fort Donelson ("Unconditional Surrender" Grant).
• The Day-One Blunder: Why Grant ordered his men not to dig entrenchments at Pittsburg Landing—and how it almost led to total annihilation.
• Bacon, Eggs, & Chaos: The surprise Confederate assault led by Albert Sidney Johnston and why hungry Rebel soldiers stopping to loot Union breakfast saved Grant’s army.
• The Hornet’s Nest & Johnston’s Death: The brutal standoff along the sunken road and how the highest-ranking combat death of the war derailed Confederate momentum.
• "Lick 'Em Tomorrow": The iconic rain-soaked midnight conversation between General William T. Sherman and Grant that set up the Day Two vengeance.
• The April 7th Counterattack: How fresh reinforcements under Don Carlos Buell and a lost Lew Wallace pushed General P.G.T. Beauregard back to Corinth.
• The Fallout & Lincoln's Defense: How Grant survived political backstabbing from Major General Henry Halleck, press rumors, and why Abraham Lincoln famously declared: "I cannot spare this man; he fights."

Enjoyed this episode? Check out these related episodes involving battles that DIDN'T go according to plan:

Australia's Great Emu War

The Bungled Battle of Gallipoli

Custer's Last Stand (Pt. 1)

Custer's Last Stand (Pt. 2)

Custer's Last Stand (Pt. 3)

Credit for the outro music

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If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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The Rainmaker Who Drowned San Diego: Charles Hatfield and the 1916 Flood

Throughout history, human civilization has risen and fallen by a single resource: water. When a decade-long drought threatened to ruin San Diego right as it prepared to showcase itself to the world, city officials turned to an unlikely savior: Charles Hatfield, a charismatic former sewing machine salesman turned "pluviculturist" who claimed he could coax rain from the heavens using a secret 23-ingredient chemical brew.

What began as a desperate $10,000 gamble quickly turned into one of the most absurd tactical disasters in California history. Setting up 20-foot towers over the Morena Reservoir, Hatfield evaporated his pungent concoction into the sky—and triggered a relentless, month-long deluge. Reservoirs overflowed, dams collapsed, a 40-foot wall of water wiped out an entire farming colony, and millions of dollars in catastrophic flood damage effectively isolated San Diego from the rest of the world.

5 Things You'll Learn in This Episode:

• The Panama Canal Snub & Drought Desperation: How San Francisco’s 1915 exposition snubbed San Diego, driving local leaders into a desperate bid to save their own festival despite dry reservoirs.
• The 23-Ingredient "Secret Sauce": How Charles Hatfield, a 9th-grade dropout turned sewing machine salesman, developed a toxic, vaporizing chemical cocktail to "attract" rain, earning him national fame as the "Cloud Coaxer."
• Making it Rain in 1916 & The Lower Otay Dam Collapse: How Hatfield’s promise to bring the rain overachieved to a terrifying degree, causing reservoirs to rise 2 feet per hour and sending a devastating 40-foot wave of water through San Ysidro.
• Flash Floods Abound and the Near Erasure of Southern California: The staggering physics behind moving water—and why 15 billion gallons of rushing rain pulverized 110 bridges, railways, and telegraph lines homes, and hundreds of farm animals. 
• The 12-Year Legal Stand off & "Act of God": Why the city council refused to pay Hatfield his $10,000 fee, how both sides dodged millions in damage liability, and whether Hatfield was a brilliant meteorologist or history's luckiest fraud.

Enjoyed this episode? Check out these related episodes involving events from the turn of the 20th century that all seem to connect to each other:

The Panama Canal: 22,000 Lives, Lost Millions, and the Ultimate French Failure

The Dust Bowl: Was the 10 Year Drought an Act of God? Or American Made

The Dutchman's Curve Disaster: Tennessee's Deadliest Train Wreck 

Enjoying the show? If you love deep dives into historical blunders, strange charlatans, and history's greatest dumpster fires, share this episode with a friend or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Support the show- help Kara and Ed continue to finding the craziest and Greatest Dumpster Fires in History!

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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The 1888 Matchstick Strike: Phossy Jaw, White Slavery & The Matchgirls Who Built Modern Unionism

In the late 1800s, British industrial titan Bryant & May dominated the global match market. But behind their shiny reputation as a "model factory" lay a grim reality: 12-hour workdays, predatory fines, low wages, and "phossy jaw"—a devastating disease caused by white phosphorus exposure that turned gums green and destroyed the human jawbone.

When socialist activist Annie Besant published an exposé titled White Slavery in London, factory owners tried to force their workers to sign a statement calling the article a lie. The workers refused. On July 5, 1888, after a woman was fired for standing her ground, 1,400 factory girls walked out—sparking the legendary Match Workers' Strike of 1888.

In this episode, we break down:

• The brutal science of white phosphorus vs. red phosphorus matches.
• The reality of Victorian "sweating" systems and factory fines.
• How strike leaders like Sarah Chapman organized over a thousand women to take on an international corporate giant.
• How a group of working-class women forced Bryant & May to yield to every single demand, formed the largest female union in Britain, and ignited the New Unionism movement.

Enjoyed this episode? Check out these related episodes involving sketchy work practices and the corporations that tried to cover it all up.

The Byford Dolphin Incident: Saturation Diving and Boiling Bodies Alive Through Decompression

The Panama Canal: 22,000 Lives, Lost Millions, and the Ultimate French Failure

Flixborough Chemical Fire: How Making Nylon Incinerated a Factory

Enjoying the show? If you love deep dives into historical blunders, corporate greed, and the people who fought back, share this episode with a friend or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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What happens when a city known for rivers that literally catch on fire tries to fix its reputation by launching 1,429,643 balloons into a storm? We'll give you a hint: two missing bodies, multiple car wrecks, ecological issues everywhere, and a horse with brain damage!

In this episode, we trace the wild, century-long history of Cleveland, Ohio—from its rise as an industrial titan to one of the most famous PR blunders in American history.

Here’s what’s inside the episode:

• A land Destined For Greatness: The Ohio River Valley was the poster child of a region of America that made it famous for its resources and adapatibility... at the expense of indigineous people of course...
• 100 Years of Runoff: How oil, steel, and tire booms turned the Cuyahoga River into a 3-foot-thick sludgy tar pit.
• One River Catching Fire 13 TIMES!: The mundane accidents that set the river ablaze and sparked the birth of the Clean Water Act and the EPA.
• Operation Comeback: The decades of hard work and political leadership that actually cleaned up the city.
• Balloonfest '86: The tragicomic disaster where a massive cloud of party balloons grounded flights, caused highway pile-ups, and shut down Coast Guard rescue operations.

For a complete run down of Ed's notes he made for this episode as well as all the other episodes Kara and Ed have put together, check out The Day's Dumpster Fire website HERE

Enjoyed this episode? Check out these related episodes burning cities and humanity's attempts at cleaning itself up with limited success:

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871: Did a Cow Really Burn Down the Windy City?

The Torrey Canyon Oil Disaster: Being the First to Crash an Oil Tanker Really Sucks

The Panama Canal: 22,000 Lives, Lost Millions, and the Ultimate French Failure

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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How do you go from censoring a kiss longer than three seconds to a woman giving birth to the Devil’s baby in under two decades?

In the epic conclusion to our three-part series on movie censorship, we’re tracing the final, messy downfall of the Hays Code. Armed with Catholic boycotts, $25,000 fines, and the iron fist of Joseph Breen, the Production Code Administration thought they had Hollywood on a leash. What they didn't count on was the sheer spite, loop-holing genius, and legal maneuvering of iconic directors determined to push the envelope.

From Howard Hughes suing censors over Jane Russell’s cleavage to Alfred Hitchcock orchestrating a flush heard 'round the world in Psycho, discover how code-breaking filmmakers, Supreme Court battles, and a rapidly changing 1960s culture finally burned the Hays Code to the ground—paving the way for the MPAA ratings system we know today.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Gatekeeper Era: Joseph Breen, the Catholic Legion of Decency, and the strict rules of 1930s Hollywood.
• Bending the Code: How The Maltese Falcon, Gone With the Wind, and Notorious used loopholes, fast talking, and subtext to dodge censors.
• The Legal Turning Point: The landmark Supreme Court ruling that gave movies First Amendment protection.
• The Final Nail in the Coffin: How 1960s masterpieces like Some Like It Hot, Bonnie and Clyde, and Rosemary’s Baby proved the Code was dead in the water.
• The Birth of Modern Ratings: The transition from rigid censorship to G, PG, R, and X.

If you want more instances of humanity messing things up, check out the The Day's Dumpster with some suggested episodes below!

The Prequels: If you missed how Tinseltown first lost its innocence, stream Movie Ratings (Pt. 1): Early Hollywood Scandals and the Silent Era - Episode 78 and Movie Ratings (Pt. 2): Rise of Popular Movie Genres and Their Codes

Throwing Money Into the Ocean: Movie Busts: How Waterworld Became the Most Expensive Disaster in Hollywood History - Episode 55

Adam Savage Talks About Dodos, Maltese Falcons and the Art of Obsession

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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Ever feel like someone is constantly looking over your shoulder, judging your every move, and telling you "no"? Like you're being micromanaged to absolute death?

Take a deep breath and give yourself some grace. No matter how restricted, watched, or heavily policed you feel in your day-to-day life right now, at least you aren't an early 20th-century filmmaker trying to navigate the iron fist of the Hays Office. Back then, showing a little too much ankle, displaying an anti-hero, or letting a character have a drink could get your entire creative project permanently axed!

In Part 2 of our exploration into the scandalous history of movie ratings and film censorship, we cover the dramatic rise of the rules that defined Hollywood. While the movie studios struggled to keep their public image clean amidst early Tinseltown scandals, a wave of cultural, political, and religious pressure forced the industry to police itself. The result? A wild, decades-long battle between pure artistic expression and heavy-handed censorship.

What We’re Unpacking This Episode:

• The "Immoral" Origins: How early motion pictures like Edison’s The Kiss (1896) instantly triggered the moral panic police.
• The Sims Act of 1912: The shocking political backlash against legendary African American boxer Jack Johnson that brought federal censorship into the theater.
• Pioneering Black Cinema: How trailblazing director Oscar Micheaux fought back against the toxic racism of Birth of a Nation by creating the first "race films" and celebrating complex Black narratives.
• The Birth of the Hays Code: How a postmaster general, a Catholic editor, and a Jesuit priest drafted the infamous "Don’ts and Be Carefuls" of 1930.
• The Glorious "Pre-Code" Era: The golden age between the arrival of "talkies" in 1927 and strict code enforcement in 1934. We’re talking about the rise of gritty gangster films (Scarface), legendary horror (Frankenstein), and fiercely independent, sexually empowered female leads like Mae West.

Sometimes, being put in a box is exactly what forces us to think outside of it. Tune in to hear how Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers turned censorship into a high-stakes game of creative chess!

Disclaimer: Because the history of film censorship naturally deals with sensitive topics—including historical racism, violence, and early cinematic sexuality—this episode is rated a soft PG-13.

Enjoyed the historical drama? Keep the dumpster fire burning with these episodes on our website:

• The Prequel: If you missed how Tinseltown first lost its innocence, stream Movie Ratings (Pt. 1): Early Hollywood Scandals and the Silent Era - Episode 78 right now!
• For more government-mandated chaos: Dive into our four-part deep dive on Prohibition (Episodes 59-62).
• For the ultimate economic meltdown: See how the movie industry survived the crash in The Great Depression (Episodes 65-68).

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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What does it take to be a great filmmaker? If you ask Jordan Peele, Danny Boyle, or George Lucas, you’ll get completely different answers. But what happens when the art of filmmaking collides head-on with the sledgehammer of censorship?

In the first of a three-part series, Ed and Kara dive into the wild, lawless early days of cinema—before the rules were written and before the moral police took over. From Thomas Edison’s cutthroat patent wars to the incredible women, immigrants, and Jewish creators who literally built Hollywood from the ground up in the sunny hills of California, early film was a thriving frontier of taboo topics and artistic freedom.

But with massive success came massive scrutiny. Join us as we explore the rise of feature films like the highly innovative (and deeply racist) The Birth of a Nation, the groundbreaking work of Lois Weber, and the trio of dark, sensationalized 1920s scandals—including the tragic downfall of Fatty Arbuckle—that ultimately forced a roaring, jazz-age Hollywood to face its very first major dumpster fire: the call for federal regulation.

Pull up a chair, grab some popcorn, and welcome to Tinseltown.

Be sure to check out The Day's Dumpster Fire website for more episode details, Kara's artwork, and musings from Ed and Kara.

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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This is part 2 of a two part series of The Day's Dumpster Fire's Iran Contra Affair. If you are just joining us, it is highly recommended that you listen to part 1 which can be found HERE. Part 1 will give some background as to why Iran and Nicaragua were such hot topics back in the 70s and 80s as well as the predicament the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan, was in at the time:

• On one hand, the Cold War was still very much a thing in the 70s and 80s and America was still worried about communism spreading like a contagion into America's hemisphere and ultimately corrupted hundreds of millions of democracy leaning people. The communists saw an opportunity to spread into Nicaragua, which was too close for America's comfort. The only solution to the problem was to support a group of militants known as the Contras. The only issue is that congress passed an amendment that absolutely forbade the White House from helping the Contras because it could start another Vietnam War. To get a sense of how much of a hot mess that war was for America, check out episodes 41 and 42 HERE.
• On the other hand, Iran was backing a terrorist organization called Hezbollah who were taking hostages, many of them American. During Reagans campaign, he criticized Jimmy Carter's handling of the hostage situation and vowed that he would NEVER negotiate with terrorists. 

In today's episode, Ed is going to expand on how Reagan and some of his closest advisors put together a plan that could not only free the hostages held by Hezbollah but also get some badly needed support going for the Contras in Nicaragua. 

Ed is going to cover the following ideas of this crazy dumpster fire:

• Who were Robert MacFarlane, Oliver North, and John Poindexter. What were their backgrounds, and how did they get involved with Reagan's plan to free the hostages. What was the strategy, how well did it work, and how did it fly out of control. 
• Then we're going to look at Marine Eugene Hasenfus who survived a plane crash in Nicaragua and simultaneously blowing the lid clean off the Iran-Contra cover-up. Hasenfus's plane got shot down like any other plane of the time period, but what was so different about it was that it was full of AK-47 bullets, AK-47 spare parts, and a bunch of other stuff that served no purpose other than to support the Contras, especially since the plane was flying towards a Contra held hold out. Needless to say, the media, including Nicaragua, had a lot of questions to ask.
• Lastly, even with the cover-up no longer covering anything up, how did Reagan walk away from the entire ordeal for the most part unscathed? How did he weather the storm of political turmoil with what seemed like ease and grace. He did such a good job handling the issue, instead of being impeached, he won the next election!

This episode flies off the rails at the very beginning and it's a fascinating view of presidential powers, checks and balances, and just exactly can the president get away with. And what happens to those who are not necessarily shielded by the president's aura of protection. Be sure to get comfortable with this one! It's going to make you feel good that you never got caught selling anti-tank missiles to an Iranian arms dealer so that you can negotiate with terrorists and make some extra cash to give to some anti-communist movement in Central America that you're forbidden to do.

Enjoyed this presidential mess? Check out these other classic Dumpster Fires:

The Prologue: For the full background on why Congress banned the White House from intervening, listen to our Vietnam War deep dive in Episodes 41 and 42.

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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Our President, Donald Trump has joined a long list of presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries who have embroiled America in the Middle East in yet another conflict. We here at The Day's Dumpster Fire don't like to take sides in terms of political parties, the Middle East has proven itself to do the exact same thing. It doesn't matter which president is in office, democrat or republican, the Middle East and America have been involved with one another for decades for one reason or another with no end in sight. 

Kara and Ed would often get questions from their students as to why the Middle East is such a confusing conflict and all they could say is that "Well, it's complicated." And you know what, nothing has changed all that much year after year other than things continue to get more and more confusing, complicated, and worse yet for America, polarizing. The best way we can describe the situation over there is that the Middle East is a combination of multiple different jigsaw puzzles that need to be assembled but with no pictures on the boxes as a frame of reference...

... Oh, and all the pieces are in a dumpster that just so happens to be on fire...

In today's episode, Ed doesn't tackle any of the laundry list of issues in the Middle East dating back to the time after WWII. Instead, Ed has put together a few of the puzzle pieces that involve a part of the puzzle contributing to some of the issues today. 

Today's episode is about The Iran Contra Affair or Scandal. In Part 1 Ed is giving us some background on:

• A brief overview of what the Iran Contra Affair was about and what sort of questions the whole kerfuffle brought about in American politics.
• What role did communism and the Cold War served in shaping American foreign affairs.
• What in the world was going on in Nicaragua and who the Contras were and what they stood for.
• What was going on with Iran and Iraq going to war in the 1980s and how the Soviet Union was playing a part. 
• A quick overview of Hezbollah and the hostages they were taking with the backing of Iran.
• And lastly, what was President Ronald Reagan doing to handle Nicaragua (which his hands were tied to do anything because of congress not wanting another Vietnam War) and Iran (in which his hands were tied due to a campaign promise of never negotiating with terrorists

Be sure to tune into Part 2 when it comes out because it's going to conclude the whole ordeal and exactly how the Reagan administration got themselves in one of the wildest scandals in American history aside from Watergate. 

Enjoyed this presidential mess? Check out these other classic Dumpster Fires:

The Prologue: For the full background on why Congress banned the White House from intervening, listen to our Vietnam War deep dive in Episodes 41 and 42.

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

Check us out on the ol Instagrams!
https://www.instagram.com/thedaysdumpsterfire/

Send us Fan Mail

Ever suffer from a brutal case of FOMO? We’ve all been there: you get left off the guest list for the party of the year, or plans fall through at the last second, and you’re left sitting at home drowning in a sea of resentment, wondering why the universe is punishing you.

But what if missing out was actually the universe protecting you?

In this episode, Kara makes her valiant return from vacation to bring you a historical reminder that sometimes, it is a profound blessing to not be the most popular person in the room. Travel back to the 1300s, where the job of the century was throwing a memorable masquerade for the King of France—a man struggling so deeply with his mental health that history deemed him insane.

To make this the event of the season, the party planners decided to go big or go home. They literally sewed the guests (King included) into highly flammable outfits, slathered them in explosive tree resin, and covered them in shaggy flax fibers to look like "wild men."

Now remember: this is the 14th century. The only source of light is open-flame torches. What could possibly go wrong?

Tune in to discover the ultimate catastrophic party foul in French history. By the end of this episode, you’ll walk away with a fresh dose of gratitude for your quiet nights in, thanking your lucky stars that you weren't popular enough to be invited to the Bal des Ardents.

Sometimes, staying put and being "unreliable" is self-care.

If you like this episode, check out the below classic historical dumpster fires below!

King Henry VIII: How a British King Failed at Marriage Six Times in a Row - Episode 19

Chinese Gunpowder: How to Get an Emperor Into Heaven... In Pieces - Episode 26

Disasters of the Dead: How to Explode a Royal Corpse and Blow up an 80-Ton Whale - Episode 58

Support the show

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

Check us out on the ol Instagrams!
https://www.instagram.com/thedaysdumpsterfire/