fascinatinghorror

The Tay Bridge Disaster

In this video I show a picture of the locomotive that pulled the train which was destroyed in the collapse. It’s in pretty bad shape, not only because of the crash, but because it was accidentally dropped while being retrieved from the water.

It certainly looks like a locomotive that isn’t going to run ever again… but, in fact, it was repaired and put back into service. It ran without ma...

The Worst Poet in History

Here's another of my "Fascinating Failures" - although this time it's a little different, as it's a creative failure rather than a business one. William McGonagall of Dundee was, and is, known for being quite possibly the worst poet ever to put pen to paper.

There are a good few examples of his poetry in the video, but if you want some more I'd recommend this website, where you can read almos...

The Accidental Death Row Electrocution

While researching this short I came across a similar but somewhat different story: that of Troy Leon Gregg. Gregg was a convicted murderer, sentenced to death in Georgia. He wasn’t able to have his sentence commuted… but he did manage to escape from prison in 1980, along with two other prisoners. Again, though, his freedom was short-lived. The very same day that he escaped, Gregg was killed after getting into a bar fight…

The Roseville Yard Explosion

You might be wondering what became of the town of Antelope which was destroyed by this disaster. At the time, it consisted of only around 30 buildings: a post office, a general store and a handful of homes. The Roseville Yard explosions practically wiped it off the map.

It wasn’t until the late 1980s that Antelope was rebuilt… albeit in a very different form. A large swathe of houses and apartment buildings were constructed as a planned new community, and the town was recognized onc...

The Glass Tower Disaster

This one was a lot of fun to work on – a movie that I’ve enjoyed and had on my radar for quite a while, and one that rivals The Poseidon Adventure when it comes to classic 1970s hammy disaster-movie action sequences.

There are so many weird bits of trivia about this film, but here are two that I particularly enjoyed.

In one scene, a crowd of extras rush to get on board one of the express elevators. Those who make it on board meet with a grisly fate just moments later�...

The Winecoff Hotel Fire

In this video I mention the hugely influential photograph taken by Arnold Hardy. It’s an interesting one, because it’s one of the last photographs he took. Although he had a keen interest in photography, he gave it up after winning the Pulitzer Prize, as he believed all his future work would be measured against that one incredibly high-profile image. He went on to become a mechanical engineer, and started a business making x-ray equipment. He lived a long life, had a son, and retired in 1...

The Fish with Human Teeth

You might have seen pictures of this fish elsewhere, perhaps under a different name. It’s sometimes known as the “convict” fish, because the stripes along its body resemble the stripes on an old prison jumpsuit. More recently videos have been posted on TikTok describing the creature as a “demon” fish. Which, as Snopes points out, is rather unfair given how little danger these tooth...

A Brief History of Hazing (Part Two)

There was one other unusual hazing death from the 1970s that I wanted to include in this video… but ultimately I just couldn’t find enough imagery to cover it. Here’s a newspaper article I did locate, though, that covers the death of Thomas Fitzgerald during a fraternity hazing in 1976.

Unusually, the accident wasn’t a result of alcohol consumption....

Adrift in the Pacific

There’s so much to this story that I couldn’t find space for in the video. If you’re interested in it, I definitely recommend the book 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin. It was written after months of interviews with Alvarenga himself, and is probably the most authoritative source that exists.

One thing I found particularly interesting was the detail about food. At first read it sounds entirely unpleasant to have to survive on raw fish, turtle blood and seafood… but Frankli...

The Most Important Snail in History

If this story interests you at all, I’d definitely recommend reading more about it. The Wikipedia article on the case is a good place to start, as it contains a blow-by-blow summary of the whole incident, including extracts from various judgements. It may seem obvious to us today that if a dead animal ends up in a drink, the manufacturer should be held liable for any damages it causes… but we only t...

The Buncefield Explosion

I’m old enough to have a clear memory of this accident, which was a pretty big news story all over the UK. There had, I recall, quite recently been a terrorist attack in London, and so people were very much on high alert. When the news first broke, many commentators were convinced that it was another deliberate bombing.

Another thing I remember quite distinctly are the stories about people heading towards the fire to film it. This was 2005, and so phone cameras were still a novelty. I...

The Khodynka Crush

Given when this disaster took place, I was surprised to see that there are quite a few of the souvenir cups that were handed out at the banquet still in circulation. Here’s a listing for one that sold at auction in 2007 for around £300.

1896 was over 120 years ago now. It’s rare to find artefacts like this from events that took place so long ago – but in this case so many cups were given away ...

The Oubliette

Identifying an oubliette is sometimes an easy task: if it’s stacked full of human bones, it may well have been an oubliette at one point or another. In some cases, though, it’s much more tricky. Features that look like an oubliette in design may actually be storage facilities, strong rooms, ice houses or latrines. 

Here’s one example of a room in the Bastille in P...

The Hoover "Fly for Free" Fiasco

Here's another "Fascinating Failure" that I thought I'd share with you a little early (I'll be publishing it on the channel next week). This one covers the Hoover Holidays scandal, which was quite a big deal in the UK in the 1990s.

My family happened to have a Hoover-brand vacuum cleaner when I was growing up. I was too young to be tuned into the news at the time, but I do recall my father making a few sarcastic comments when it needed fixing - along the lines of not trusting Hoover to ...

The Pemberton Mill Collapse

While researching this video I spent quite a long time trying to determine what the new Pemberton Mill building is used for today. Other mills in the area have been converted into apartment buildings, or are used for other industrial activities.

But the Pemberton Mill itself is unlabelled on Google Maps, and even when you look at it from Street View there are few clues to its current usage. It doesn’t lo...

The Zacatón Sinkhole Accident

While I was doing some background reading for this story I came across this rather unusual form. It’s posted on a very old-looking site dedicated to diving with a particular mix of gases known as Trimix. The purpose of the form? Ostensibly it’s to be given to anyone who plans a risky dive without sufficient training or experience, so that they can pre-approve the recovery of their own lifeless body.

He...

This Fungus Turns Ants Into Zombies

I can’t complete a short about the Ophiocordyceps fungus without mentioning the video game The Last of Us. It’s an excellent game with a very compelling story, set in a world where a fungus that infects and controls humans has spread out of control. The TV series made after the video game is also very good – though be warned, if you find the imagery of the Ophiocordyceps taking over ants unpleasant... it’s nothing to what you’ll see in The Last of Us 2024-02-09 11:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post