Relative Disasters

It was the most anticipated boxing match of the year, a fight to decide the heavyweight champion, a fight in front of fifteen thousand people in San Fransisco. There were just a couple of issues... 1), it was illegal to hold a boxing match in San Fransisco, and 2), they couldn't agree on a referee. Come step into ring as we talk about boxing, thrown/fixed fights, and what this all had to do with legendary Wild West lawman Wyatt Earp.

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Sources:

The Earp Decision by Jack DeMattos

Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends by Allen Barra

Various San Fransisco Chronicle and San Fransisco Call articles

At the end of the 16th century, 115 English colonists set out to settle Queen Elizabeth I's claim to the mid-Atlantic coast of North America, and were promptly marooned by pirates on the Outer Banks. Only a few weeks into the project, and faced with bad luck, drought, and a murder, the colonists decided to send their leader back home for supplies and assistance. When he returned three years later, however, every single one of the colonists had disappeared.

On this episode, we're discussing diplomacy, pirates, Schrodinger's Colonists, and John White's years-long (and incredibly frustrating) effort to get back to his friends and family.

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

Sources for this episode include: 

"The Head in Edward Nugent's Hand" by M. L. Oberg, 2000

"What Happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke?'" by staff writer for History, 2012

"The Mystery of Roanoke Endures Yet Another Cruel Twist", by A. Lawlor for Smithsonian Magazine, 2017

Come join us for a sporting event/political statement that got wildly out of control! We'll talk about some interesting historical people, one of the most interesting historical empires, and why wearing blue or green in the wrong place at the wrong time could get you killed. Also, bread is tasty and circuses are fun.

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

Sources:

The Account of Malalas John, written circa 540~ CE

The Wars of Justinian by Procopius

Blue versus Green: Rocking the Byzantine Empire by Mike Dash

In August of 1819, the Essex set sail from the island of Nantucket to the whaling grounds of the south Pacific. In June of 1821, less than half of the crew returned, with a horrific tale of a whale attack and months adrift at sea. On this episode, we're discussing sperm whales, whale oil processing, survival cannibalism, a series of terrible decisions (and one great one), and why Herman Melville's book 'Moby Dick' is so incredibly boring.

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

Sources for this episode include:

"In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex", by N. Philbrick, 2000

“Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex", by O. Chase, 1821

"The face that sank the Essex: potential function of the spermaceti organ in aggression" article by D. Carrier, et all, for Journal of Experimental Biology, 2002

In this episode we'll be talking about why laws regarding stewardship of other peoples' money exist, how institutionalized prejudice threatened the lives and well-being of Sarah Rector and her family, and how she fought back and re-gained control of what was rightfully hers. Come meet the young millionaire who refused to let the shady people "managing" her money win!

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

Sources for this episode include:

Searching For Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America by Tonya Bolden, published 2014 by Abrams

The Richest Black Girl in America by Dr. Lauren N. Henley

Washington Post article by Sydney Trent, September 3 2022

In 1859, a wealthy landowner in Whichelsea, Victoria, released 24 rabbits on his land for shooting, and unintentionally infested the continent with a rabbit population that peaked at 10 billion.  On this episode, we're talking bunnies: their homes, diets, families, and the incredible amount of damage they can do to an ecosystem. 

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

Sources for this episode include:

"How 24 British rabbits took over Australia", H. Chen for CNN, 2022

"Defining Moments: Rabbits introduced", National Museum Australia, n.d.

With Ella going nine rounds with Covid this week, please welcome our special guest-hosts: Greg's family! Join us as we talk about Action Park, the now-legendary New Jersey destination that promised great family fun... with a side-menu of skull fractures, skin abrasions, and - in six tragic cases - death. How this park stayed open - and how it ever opened in the first place - will be explored. Make sure your safety belt is fastened for this one!

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

Sources:

Revisiting Traction ... Er, Action, Park by Joanne Austin, Weird NJ #25, October 2005

Remembering Action Park, America's Most Dangerous, Daring Water Park by Jack McCallum, Sports Illustrated August 2020

Class Action Park by Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott III (Documentary), released 2020

On November 10, 1975, a storm passed over Lake Superior. Initially thought to be a minor weather disturbance, it soon turned into a gale, complete with 100-knot winds, 35-foot rogue waves, and heavy snow. When the ore carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald was caught in the worst of the weather, she made for Whitefish Bay, Michigan, before vanishing off radar without a single distress call.  On this episode, we’re discussing the unique dangers of Great Lakes shipping, as well as taconite ore, Gordon Lightfoot, and one of the strangest shipwrecks we’ve ever come across.

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

Sources for this episode include:

"Radio Transmissions on the Night of the Edmund Fitzgerald's Sinking" by M. Brush for Michigan Radio / National Public Radio, 2015

 "Edmund Fitzgerald" page on the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum website 

"The Cruelest Month" by J. R. Gaines for Newsweek Magazine, 1975

“29 Missing”, by Andrew Kantar, 1998

Warning: This episode is centered on the senseless and preventable deaths of over one hundred children. If that's not something you want to deal with, please skip this episode and re-join us next week.

In the green, rolling hills and valleys of southern Wales, coal sat in rich veins. The process of removing that coal was acknowledged to be dangerous for the miners, a risk that they all accepted to provide for their families. None of them knew that the lives that would be risked were not just their own, but those of their children. Join us as we discuss mining operations, the power of the National Coal Board, and how de-humanizing bureaucracy can be when empathy for human beings is forgotten for the sake of a bit of cash.

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

Sources:

Aberfan:Disasters and Government by Iain McLean & Martin Johnes (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2000)

Aberfan: The mistake that cost a village its children by Ceri Jackson

On a clear summer morning in 1908, a bright light was seen in the sky over the Siberian forest around the Tunguska River. Minutes later, a shock wave flattened 800 square miles of forest, killed hundreds of thousands of animals, and blew out windows some 200 miles away from the impact site. But when scientists went looking for the crater, they found no evidence that anything at all had hit the ground. On this episode, we’re discussing meteors / comets / asteroids / meteoroids, space grazers, a lake with a weird shape, and what exactly lay at ground zero of the Tunguska Event.

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

Sources for this episode include: 

“The Tunguska Event: The Mystery of the Biggest Explosion in Recorded History” by Charles River Editors, 2014

"The Mystery of the Dark Asteroid That Scorched Russia" by M. Altamirano for Nautilus, 2020

"Tunguska Revisited: 111-Year-Old Mystery Impact Inspires New, More Optimistic Asteroid Predictions" by K. E. Smith for NASA.gov, 2019

"The Tunguska explosion, 114 years ago today", by P. S. Anderson and K. K. Witt for Earth Sky, 2022

"Preliminary Results from the 1961 Combined Tunguska Meteorite Expedition" by K.P. Florenskiy for Meteoritica, 1963 

"The Tunguska Mystery" by L. Gasperini, E. Bonatti,and G. Longo for Scientific American, 2008