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.

Major Henry Reed Rathbone and his fiancé, Clara Harris, attended a play with Abraham and Mary Lincoln on the night the President was shot. Booth lung...

When he is 18 years old, Pliny the Younger and his mother are living at his Uncle's villa in Misenum. They are there when Vesuvius begins its 18-hour...

In this story, based on his personal observations in 1902, Jack London describes ''Doss Houses'' and what it was like to live in them.

Learn about hurricanes, weather predictions and an unexpected weather phenomenon known as "The Perfect Storm" which claimed the lives of six fishermen...

As a massive fire ravaged their town, people fled toward the Peshtigo River.

Tech Sgt. Rick Smith's unit had a motto on the 30th of October, 1991: "These things we do, that others may live." His daughters are following in his f...

When do paintings tell the real story and when do they depict a romanticized view of events? Does it matter? How do we determine when a piece of art c...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a 16th-century Dutch painter, captures everyday life amidst the scourge of plague.

It's 110 years since America's largest-recorded avalanche struck the town of Wellington in Washington state. How did this disaster occur?

The poem of Robert Dwyer Joyce - The Wind that Shakes the Barley - has been set to hauntingly beautiful music.

Herb Block, who would ultimately become a famous political cartoonist at the Washington Post, created this illustration in 1929.

This historic film footage, taken by the Edison Film Company, depicts the state of ruin in San Francisco, following the April 1906 earthquake and subs...

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