Relative Disasters

In this episode, we look at the events surrounding the Great Peshtigo Fire - the deadliest wildfire in American history. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s probably because it took place the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, on October 8, 1871. Unlike the blaze in Chicago, however, conditions surrounding the Peshtigo fire turned it into a phenomenon known as a firestorm – a debris-laden flaming tornado that swept over the town of Peshtigo and surrounding communities at horrific speeds and temperatures, ultimately killing at least 1500 people (and possibly as many as 2500). We’ll give you some eyewitness accounts, an overview of just how flammable Peshtigo was in 1871, an introduction to the Peshtigo Paradigm, and the rundown on why you never want to use a white pine for a Christmas tree.

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources for this episode include:

“The Wisconsin Fires – Additional Particulars of the Unusual Phenomena Attending Them – Balls of Fire in the Air – Swift March of the Flames”, by staff writer (Milwaukee Sentinel, as printed in NYT), 1871

“The Peshtigo Fire”, by S. Holbrook (The American Scholar), 1944

“Fire at Peshtigo” by Robert W. Wells, 1968

“The Peshtigo Fire, October 8, 1871: Calamity and Response”, by N. Flesch (University of Wisconsin - thesis paper), 2009

“147TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT PESHTIGO FIRE” by T. Baldwin (US Congressional Record) 2018

“Menominee Nation honored for assisting victims of Peshtigo fire”, by K. Vinehaut, 2018

“Remembering the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871”, by G. Havel, (Fire Engineering), 2007

"Personal Letter to Mary Newberry", by Martha Newberry Coon, 1871

Join us in the somewhat-settled/somewhat-Wild West of the United States for a tale of a diamond mine that doesn't exist, the gleeful embarrassment of some of the biggest names in finance and politics of the late 1800s, and the unlikely twist of fate that exposed the whole scheme. It's an episode where the "hero" leads a double-life and the criminal masterminds settle down for quiet lives. Step behind the uncut stones for the unvarnished truth in this glittering episode of Relative Disasters!

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources:

Diamonds in the Salt by Bruce A Woodard

A Hole In the Ground with a Liar at the Top by Dan Plazak

The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax : Clarence King in the Old West by Robert Wilson

American Lives: The "Strange" Tale of Clarence King, NPR 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129250977&t=1624938806853

Further Reading:

Passing strange : a Gilded Age tale of love and deception across the color line by Martha Sandweiss

Grab a swimsuit and top off your sunscreen - we're off to Australia's beautiful Bondi Beach! In this episode, we're looking at the events of February 6, 1938, when a series of rogue waves dragged 250 beachgoers - many of whom couldn't actually swim - past the headlands and into the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the lifeguards and bystanders, plus new surf lifesaving devices and training in the latest resuscitation methods, all but five of the victims survived. Of course, since this is an Ella episode, we'll be doing a few sidebars on her mild obsessions with wool bathing suits, the guilty-pleasure reality show Bondi Rescue, and sharks.

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources for this episode include: 

"Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Study", by D. Steele (Consulting) for Waverly Council, 2009

"Black Sunday 1938: Hundreds Washed Out To Sea on Bondi Beach as Freak Waves Kill Five, Injure Dozens", by T. Lennon (Daily Telegraph), 2015

"Black Sunday on Bondi Beach", by staff writer, (Surf Sports Forum), 2016  

"Plucky Rescue at Bondi", by staff writer, (Clarence and Richmond Examiner), 1907 

"Between the Flags: 100 Years of Surf Life Saving in New Zealand: Resuscitation Methods", by J. Webber, 2010 

"Bondi Beach lifesavers commemorate 80th anniversary of Black Sunday drownings with re-enactment", by D. Spicer, (ABC News Australia), 2018

"Black Sunday", by Waverly Library / Local History Collection, 2020

"Australian Beach Cultures: The History of Sun, Sand and Surf" by D. Booth, 2001

Bondi Rescue channel (youtube), 2007-present

In this episode, we go back to the 80's and talk about how the nascent video game industry in North America was nearly wiped out by a series of bad decisions and hubris. We'll visit Atari, Pac-Man, E.T., and a landfill in New Mexico.

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources:

The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven Kent

Video Games Industry Comes Down To Earth by N.R. Kleinfield

-New York Time, Oct. 17, 1983

Home Video Games Are Coming Under Strong Attack by Robert Snowden Jones

-Gainesville Sun, Dec. 12, 1982 (Cox News Service)

What Went Wrong At Atari? by  John Hubner

-Infoworld, Vol. 5 #48

From Landfill to Smithsonian Collections: "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" Atari 2600 game by Drew Robarge

https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/landfill-smithsonian-collections-et-extra-terrestrial-atari-2600-game

In medieval Strasbourg, during a period of unimaginable suffering and poverty, a mania took hold. Infected people were gripped by the compulsion to dance in the streets until they dropped senseless from exhaustion - or died. When the strange illness began to spread, the city took a series of steps to help the afflicted, culminating in a thirty-mile trek to seek the intervention of an obscure saint who may or may not have been angry at the city's sinful lifestyle. On this episode, we look at the time period leading up to the dancing plague, possible causes, how it spread, what the cure looked like (it came with a free pair of red shoes!) and what made this event so much worse than similar ones across the late Middle Ages. 

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources for this episode include:  

“The Dancing Mania: The Strange, True Story of an Extraordinary Illness”, J. Waller, 2009

“The Black Death and the Dancing Mania”, J F K Hecker, (Babington translation), 1856

“The Differential Diagnosis of Chorea”, E J Wild et al, published in ‘Practical Neurology’, 2007

“The Dancing Plague of the Middle Ages”, M. Petcova, published in ‘Medium’, 2020

“Dancing Plagues and Mass Hysteria”, J Waller, published in ‘The Psychologist’ (British Psychological Society), 2009 

We're off for some birdwatching this week, with a deep dive into everyone's favorite extinction story, the dodo. Big, flightless, beaky, and laying only a single egg at a time, dodos were doomed from the moment Dutch merchants settled on the island at the turn of the sixteenth century. We lay out how and why the population dwindled, with extensive sidebars into how they tasted (not good), what they looked like (uninspiring), where the last few scraps of dodo remains are today (in museums and in court), and, most crucially, how likely they are to being revived through cloned DNA for observation and research in a Jurassic Park-style ecopark (not very likely, unfortunately, but we both fully support this). 

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

We're off to the African country of Cameroon this week to talk about the Lake Nyos tragedy, in which a small, rural crater lake exploded on a calm August evening. The eruption released a cloud of toxic gas that swept down into the valley below, killing every aerobic organism within a 15 kilometer radius - including at least 1750 people living in the villages of Nyos and Subum. We discuss the potential causes of the eruption; the incredible rescue and cleanup management; and Cameroon's efforts to de-saturate the lake, prevent another event, and move 20,000 displaced villagers back home. We'll also touch on the 2 other lakes in West Africa with the potential to explode, and Greg takes a deep dive into his secondhand textbook collection to give us a rundown on the difference between meromictic and monomictic lakes, as well as the particular conditions necessary for a limnic eruption.  

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources for this episode include:

“Eco-Autopsy of the Lake Nyos Disaster in Cameroon” by A. G. Aghaindum, 2017

“The African lake with explosive power”, by J. Wenz, Knowable Magazine, 2020

“Defusing Africa’s Killer Lakes” by K. Krajick, Smithsonian Magazine, 2003

“Lake Nyos disaster, Cameroon, 1986: the medical effects of large scale emission of carbon dioxide” by P. Baxter, M. Kapila, D. Mfonfu, BMJ, 1989

“Lake Nyos disaster survivors to return home after 30 years”, Al Jazeera English (video), 2016

“The Killer Lake Powering Rwanda”, BBC click (video)

"When Lake Michigan Burps", by Laura Otto, University of Wisconsin / Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences blog, 2017

This week we're headed to Canada to discuss the story of Air Canada Flight 143, which ran out of fuel 40,000 feet above rural Manitoba in July of 1983. What should have been a crash was narrowly averted by a pair of skilled pilots, a handful of algebra, and a landing site on a decommissioned airstrip in Gimli - which happened to be packed with Canadian car enthusiasts watching a racecar rally. Along the way, we'll talk about the Canadian air-traffic industry's imperial-metric changeover, how to up-cycle an old Air Force base, and - most importantly - how to turn a Boeing 767 into the world's heaviest and least agile glider.

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources for this episode include:

Gimliglider.org

"The Gimli Glider" by Wade H. Nelson for Soaring Magazine, 1997

"'Gimli glider' recalled at trial of pilot in crash", CBC News story, 2007

"This Day in Aviation: 23rd July, 1983" by B. Swopes, 2016

In episode 17, we're heading to Vaughn, Mississippi, to look at the infamous wreck of Engine 382. We'll discuss John Luther "Casey" Jones, the engineer at the controls of 382, his career in the railroad industry, and his actions leading up to the wreck, with sidebars on speeding freight trains, the banana business, the Chicago World's Fair, train whistles, and all the Casey Jones songs. We'll also take a look at how Wallace Saunders and Simeon T. Webb publicized the story of the wreck, and our first Special Guest Star (spoiler: it's our Dad) will share his expertise on railroad culture, express lines, how steam engines speed up and slow down, and what caused Casey Jones to think the track was clear on the night of the accident.

*We mistakenly referred to the town in which Casey Jones lived as "Jackson, Mississippi", when it was, in fact, Jackson, Tennessee.

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Sources for this episode include:

"Casey Jones - Epic of the American Railroad" by F. J. Lee, 1921

Audio interview with Simeon Webb 

"Casey Jones Accident Report", A. S. Sullivan / Illinois Central Railroad, 1900

“The Legend of Casey Jones” by J. Lambrecht, National Railroad Museum

Content Warning: this episode concerns an act of extreme violence: mass murder and mass suicide, including the murder of children. Please feel free to skip this episode if that's going to be hard for you to hear.

In this episode, we examine the life of American cult leader and mass murderer Jim Jones. We'll take a look at his strong beliefs in racial equality, and how this promising beginning descended into drug addiction, cultism, paranoia, power, and violence as we attempt to answer the question: how dangerous can blind faith be? As we learn from the events at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18 1978 - if that faith is placed in the wrong person, it can be very dangerous indeed. 

Enjoy the show? Support us on Patreon, at ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/RelativeDisastersPodcast⁠⁠.

Partial sources for this episode include:

"Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People", T. Reiterman and J. Jacobs, 1982

"Affidavit of Deborah Layton Blakey", "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 642", and "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 1053" , The Jonestown Project, San Diego State University, consulted 2021

Recording of FBI tape Q 042, "Death Tape", wikimedia commons, consulted 2021

"Father Cares", NPR audio documentary, 1981

"Jonestown FBI Files", Internet Archive, consulted 2021