On Saturday, September 9th, 1900, a Category 4 Hurricane slammed into an unsuspecting, unprepared Galveston. At the time, it was a bustling port city on a Texas barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. In the days before weather satellites or even radio, the people of Galveston had absolutely no warning, and no timeContinue reading “Podcast: The Deadly Galveston Hurricane of 1900”
Category Archives: Podcasts
Podcast: Remember the Sultana! The Civil War Disaster
More souls died during the Riverboat Sultana disaster than on the RMS Titanic! The Sultana disaster on the Mississippi River during the U.S. Civil War is in fact, the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history. So why is it such a forgotten piece of Americana, with no historical site or Hollywood film? Everyone remembers theContinue reading “Podcast: Remember the Sultana! The Civil War Disaster”
Podcast: The Lingering Legacy of the Chernobyl Disaster
The greatest nuclear disaster the Earth has ever known, worse than even Japan’s Fukushima, or the U.S. Three Mile Island, began innocently enough in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 26th, 1986 at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. A simple safety test was about to be performed that wouldContinue reading “Podcast: The Lingering Legacy of the Chernobyl Disaster”
Podcast: Razor Tojo – Japan’s Adolf Hitler
Contrary to popular myth, Japan’s version of Adolf Hitler was not the Emperor Hirohito, but rather its infamous Minister of War, Hideki Razor Tojo. But who was this ruthless and powerful man so few outside Japan know of? He rose to power in the 1930’s, began World War II in the Pacific, and wasContinue reading “Podcast: Razor Tojo – Japan’s Adolf Hitler”
Podcast: Five Reasons the Johnstown Flood Disaster should never have happened
The terrible Johnstown Flood of 1889 was more of a man-made Tsunami. Yes, there was flooding at first. The ‘Storm of the Century‘ rains arrived in the deep Pennsylvania valley on Memorial Day, 1889. The two rivers that flanked the steel mill town began to swell. But it wasn’t until the aging South Fork DamContinue reading “Podcast: Five Reasons the Johnstown Flood Disaster should never have happened”
Podcast: The Tragic Fate of the SS St. Louis Jewish Refugees
In May 1939, 937 anxious Jewish refugees fled the horrors of Nazi Germany, aboard an ocean liner named the SS St. Louis. Most were German citizens, with Jews from other countries like Poland and Austria. The passengers planned to reach Cuba first, then ultimately seek sanctuary the United States. They would tragically never make it.Continue reading “Podcast: The Tragic Fate of the SS St. Louis Jewish Refugees”
Podcast: The American Legacy of the Cherokee Trail of Tears
General Andrew Jackson won the nasty election of 1828 and was elected President of the United States. At this time, over 125,000 Native Americans still occupied millions of acres in the American southeast – land they had lived on for generations. In a little over a decade, thanks the Indian Removal Act, there would beContinue reading “Podcast: The American Legacy of the Cherokee Trail of Tears”
Podcast : An Irish Immigrants Welcome – No Irish Need Apply
Given this centuries massive migrant refugee crises around the world, it’s not hard to fathom the intense Irish immigrant bigotry of the mid-1800’s. The great Irish Potato Famine lasted nearly a decade and brought massive numbers of Irish refugees to America, Canada and England. Faced with eviction and starvation, hundreds of thousands of Irish emigrated across the AtlanticContinue reading “Podcast : An Irish Immigrants Welcome – No Irish Need Apply”
Podcast: An Immigrant’s Ellis Island Fate Depended on 29 Questions
For a vast number of Americans, their great-grandparents arrived in the U.S. as immigrants in the early 1900’s. There were no airports back then, just a cold, grey ocean to cross. So all the Poles, Russians, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Swedes, and Germans arrived in New York by steamship. Poorer immigrants in third class “steerage” were ferried by barge withContinue reading “Podcast: An Immigrant’s Ellis Island Fate Depended on 29 Questions”