Disasters Story Briefs

Whether natural or man-made, disasters simultaneously cause massive destruction and unity of people trying to help those in need. Discover some of the world's worst disasters in this collection.

During the 1930s, photographers like Dorothea Lange documented the desperate conditions of migrant farm workers in America, including their efforts to...

As he traveled to Washington for his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln was told of a plot to kill him.

"Houston, we've had a problem," are the words Apollo 13's crew used to alert ground control of a near-fatal episode in space. Did the crew of Apollo 1...

October 23 is "World Polio Day." Step back to a time when Boards of Health issue warning signs to guard against contracting polio in the early 20th ce...

The rediscovery of Pompeii initially happens by chance - in 1599 - when Domenico Fontana (an architect) is called in to investigate why workers diggin...

In his second letter (6.20), Pliny the Younger describes what he heard, and saw, after he and his mother left his uncle's villa. Among other things, ...

Image of a map depicting naval positions on the day before the battle of Salamis and the day of the battle.

As reporters and illustrators for various newspapers visit the Irish countryside, they are appalled by what they see. Out of their former homes, and ...

Beyond the famine, and all its problem-causing situations, the Poor Laws make life for Irish peasants completely untenable. Those laws effectively cr...

While some displaced families can only find shelter by digging a Scalp (a hole in the Earth or a bog), others - more fortunate, by far - create a home...

Huge amounts of oil are contained in the head of a sperm whale. This white whale, like the "Moby Dick" of Herman Melville's tale, also has a gigantic ...

Image of a photograph depicting a Navy diver on the ocean floor after the crash of TWA 800 into the Atlantic Ocean off the south shore of Long Island ...

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