fascinatinghorror

The Matterhorn Bobsleds

Like any story that involves a Disney park, there are plenty of side stories and interesting details that I couldn’t quite fit into the video. Here are two of them…

The basketball court

From the ride’s opening in 1959 until around 1970, guests could often see an intrepid band of mountain climbers scaling the sheer side of the Matterhorn throughout the day. These were actually real, qualified climbers, hired to add that little extra magic to the attraction. T...

The Last Death of World War II

The death of Charles Havlat on the final day of World War II is all the more tragic when you look at the incredible things he survived during the war. He trained all over America, entered Europe via Scotland, crossed into the warzone via Omaha Beach, and battled tanks in the hedgerows of Normandy. His Battalion criss-crossed Europe, and fought in the Battle of Aachen, the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, and the Battle of the Bulge.

Having survived all that, Charles Havlat lost his life durin...

The Hoboken Docks Fire

Here are a couple of details I came across while reading that didn’t quite fit in the video.

Disposing of merchandise

A huge amount of merchandise was burned during the fire. While it was nothing compared to the loss of human life, it was estimated to be of around $6 million in value, and presented quite a challenge to the workers tasked with clearing it up.

Here’s a snippet 2023-04-04 10:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post

The Sinking of the SS Poseidon

It's always fun watching a classic disaster movie... and I've been wanting an excuse to rewatch The Poseidon Adventure for a while now. It's part of a rash of excellent disaster films from the 1970s. If you enjoy this, I'd also highly recommend The Towering Inferno (1974).

A fun bit of trivia that I came across while doing some background reading: the film is based on a novel written by Paul Gallico... who was inspired after being on board a ship when it was hit by a f...

Can Office Chairs Explode?

In this short I mention that there have been several office chair explosions in China. It’s a problem that gained a lot of media attention, and has even been covered in a Chinese TV program called Seeking Truth.

Here’s the relevant episode. About five minutes in they conduct a test where they drop sandbags onto several office chairs. The force of the explosion that ensues with some of them is ...

The Green Ramp Disaster

Here are a few extra notes that I wanted to include in this story, but couldn’t quite find space for in the video.

Sergeant Daniel E Price

Because so many people experienced the crash, there are dozens of accounts of it to be found online. There was one, however, that particularly struck me. Specialist Corporal Estella Wingfield survived the disaster thanks to the actions of a man she’d never met before: Sergeant Daniel E Price. In her own words:

The Brain-Eating Amoeba

For as long as I can remember I’ve been told that it’s a bad idea to put your head under the water in a hot tub. I’d always wondered why… and it turns out this is one of the reasons. Even if a hot tub is infected with Naegleria fowleri, the only way it can do you harm is if it gets into your nose, and putting your head under the water is a good way to get water in your nose.

I say that’s one of´the reasons, because this isn’t the only micro-organism that can thrive...

The Story of Franz Reichelt

Here are a couple of other parachute-related stories I came across while researching Reichelt.

Frederick Law

Just a couple of days before Reichelt’s fateful jump, another parachute test took place in America… and this one was much more successful. Steeplejack Frederick Law leapt from the torch of the Statue of Liberty and managed to land safely on the island below.

It might not have been a particularly fun experience, though. According to 2023-03-21 11:15:00 +0000 UTC View Post

The Story of Hiroo Onoda

Hiroo Onoda was a relatively famous Japanese holdout… but he wasn’t the only one, by any means. For a variety of reasons dozens of soldiers refused to surrender for many years after the end of the war. On Wikipedia you can find a partial list of some of the more well-known ones.

In some cases, it was down to them being posted in a remote area with little access to communications. In some cases it ...

The Burnden Park Disaster

Whenever a disaster takes place at a sporting or music event, there are always a lot of side stories and tangents to follow up on. Here are two of them from this story…

Football during the war

It was extremely interesting reading about how football changed during the years of World War II. In the UK football is a big part of the culture, and so even during a global conflict it didn’t go away altogether… although it certainly was impacted.

Many professi...

Britain's Last "Witch"

To this day Helen Duncan remains a controversial figure. She has many supporters who have tried repeatedly to have her conviction posthumously overturned – most recently in 2012. So far they have been unsuccessful; there’s abundant documentation of her manifestations being fraudulent – including some samples of her cheesecloth ectoplasm that survive to this day.

At the same time, her punishment was unusually harsh – especially considering that similar performers were common at t...

The Twilight Zone Movie Accident

There’s a lot to this story – here are some of the more interesting tangents that I couldn’t find space for in the video

John Landis and Eddie Murphy

After the trial, John Landis’s career was in serious trouble. Nobody wanted to hire him as a director (quite reasonably, you might say). But he still had some friends in Hollywood. Actor Eddie Murphy spoke up for him and got him a job directing Coming to America.

To be clear, Murphy didn’t th...

The Worst Retirement Gift

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/68NBcjxRN8U 

When putting together a story about an ejector seat, I have to mention the Martin-Baker Ejection Tie Club. Martin-Baker is a company that manufactures many of the ejector seats used in modern aircraft. It’s been around for at least 70 years, a...

The Grand Canyon Mid-air Collision

Here are a few tangents from this week’s story. And a recommendation: if you find the Grand Canyon as fascinating as me, I’d definitely grab a copy of Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon by Thomas Myers and Michael Ghiglieri, from which I learned of both these side stories.

Billingsley’s odyssey

A fair few people visited the crash s...

The WWII Baseball Grenade

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GjBvvhIPJ-c 

Only a few thousand BEANO T-13s were ever manufactured, and very few survived the war. Some were used. Some were lost. Some were recalled and destroyed by the military. They’re now so difficult to find – and such an oddity – that they fetch quite high prices at auction.

A few recent auctions I looked at saw the gren...

The PEPCON Disaster

Here are a few side stories I came across while researching this disaster.

The marshmallow factory

The Kidd Marshmallow Factory was one of two industrial facilities (other than the PEPCON plant itself) that were destroyed in the explosion. Fortunately their staff were able to evacuate before the blast, and nobody was killed.

Better still, the factory was rebuilt on the same site, and almost all staff were able to keep their jobs. PEPCON might not have had an...

The World's Most Toxic Animal

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-ZaTzk0uCTM 

One thing I didn’t mention in this video is how this poisonous frog got its name. For a very long time the indigenous peoples of the Colombian rainforest, including the Emberá-Wounaan and the Cofán, used the poison extracted from these frogs to tip their spears, arrows and blowgun darts. This naturally lead to them being re...

The Peshtigo Fire

So many interesting, incredible and terrible stories came out of the Peshtigo Fire. Here are a couple that I couldn’t find space for in the video…

Father Pernin’s warning signs

In this video I mention the priest Peter Pernin, who wrote a book about the fire and how he survived it. I use two brief quotes from this book in the video, but it’s certainly worth reading the whole ...

The Story of Jeremy Bentham

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cRnS8EJ-Gz8 

Bentham's auto-icon is topped with a wax replica of his head... which isn't quite what he wanted. His original instructions called from the mummification and use of his actual head. 

To be fair to Dr Southwood Smith (the man charged with carrying out the mummification process), he did give it a really good t...

The Le Mans Motor Racing Disaster

This particular disaster had a long legacy. Here’s a little more detail on some of the things that happened in the aftermath…

The fate of the drivers involved

Arguments about whose actions had caused the crash went on for many years after 1955, and the discussion was (understandably) a sore subject for some of the drivers involved.

In 1958, Hawthorn published an autobiography titled Challenge Me the Race, in which he mentioned the crash but made...

The Origin of the Chainsaw

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Xrqr3VRNjqg 

As I say in this video, chainsaws are rarely used in operating theatres these days... but the same doesn't hold true for all power tools. There are a surprising number of stories where an ordinary household drill was used to carry out life-saving emergency treatment.

2023-02-03 11:15:00 +0000 UTC View Post

The Gare de Lyon Disaster

Here are a few notes of interest from this story that didn’t find a place in the main video.

Passenger emergency brakes

Since the time of this accident, passenger emergency brakes on trains have changed a lot. Now it’s relatively rare that a passenger pulling an emergency brake lever will result instantly in an automatic brake application.

Instead, pulling one of these levers usually alerts the driver, who can hold off the brake application until the tra...

The Voynich Manuscript

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fbrmabU5X_0 

Want to read (or at least, look at) the Voynich Manuscript yourself? You can do so online courtesy of The Internet Archive. Here's a link to where you can view and download a copy of the manuscript for free.

Having paged thro...

The 1980 Eruption of Mount Saint Helens

In my notes this week I wanted to offer a little more detail about some of the people mentioned in this story.

Governor Dixy Lee Ray

Governor Dixy Lee Ray was both criticised and praised for her response to the disaster. On the one hand, she established the Red Zone, into which most people were not allowed. In doing so she potentially saved as many as 30,000 people from coming to harm.

At the same time she also allowed logging activities to continue in the s...

The WWII Ball Turret

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vwohmAj4xP8 

While researching this story, I came across the poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell. It's only five lines long, so here it is in its entirety:

"From my mother’s ...

2023-01-20 11:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post