Barbara Tuckman’s Law: Perpetual Readiness for Disasters

To visit Israel or the greater Middle East right now, during the Israel-Palestine War might seem terrifying. But historian Barbara Tuckman, author of "The Guns of August," "The March of Folly," and other historical classics, in "A Distant Mirror" fleshed out what she called Tuckman's Law: "Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from …

On Anniversary of Titanic Disaster, Recalling Survivor Stories and Movies That Immortalized It

Friday marks the 111th anniversary of one of history's deadliest maritime disasters, the sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912. King5.com television in Seattle, WA posted an interview from 1996 with a 100-year-old survivor who lost her father in the sinking. Survivors Give Their Impressions of 'Titanic' Movies. The 1958 movie, "A Night to Remember" …

An Earthquake Will Destroy A Big Portion of the US Northwest. Exactly When Is Not Known

The New Yorker: Annals of Seismology. The Really Big One. An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the Pacific Northwest. The question is when. By Kathryn Schulz, July 13, 2015. "The next full-margin rupture of the Cascadia subduction zone will spell the worst natural disaster in the history of the continent, outside of the …

Devastating Turkish Earthquake Reminds Us of Worst in History

For the second time in less than 25 years, Turkey (Turkiye) has experienced a horrific earthquake that has killed tens of thousands of people. This one is in the southern part of the country whereas the one in 1999 was in the northern part of the country. Having lived in Turkey for two years, on …

Historian Niall Ferguson: Conservative Gadfly Challenges Liberal Assumptions

Historian Niall Ferguson routinely comments on the news.  He's a Scottish-American historian, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, according to Wikipedia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7hEF8CS79U&t=56s He gave an interview to economist Tyler Cowen of the Mercatus Center …

David McCullough’s Classic Historical Study of Johnstown Flood of 1889 Still Resonates

When seeing signs on the highway for Johnstown, PA, I think immediately of the infamous Johnstown Flood, which occurred on May 31, 1889, drowning more than 2,200 people. A preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, it is still studied by engineering students around the world who try to determine exactly what went wrong.  Catastrophically, 14 miles …

Scientific Revolution in Europe Changed Everything, Led to Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press

In this 15-minute Crash Course lecture, John Green explains how the scientific revolution which began in the 1600s in Europe dramatically changed the course of human history and continues to do so. We can even trace the development of the very concept of freedom --of religion, speech (thought, expression), and press to the scientific revolution. …

Killing Masses of Humans: Disease, Drought, Famine and Climate Change Can Result in End of Civilizations

Disease, or epidemics, may have been one reason the Roman Empire fell in the 400s. It (specifically small pox) certainly was the main reason for wiping out 90 percent of the Native American population of North American before 1800. In the above Crash Course video, "John Green teaches you about disease, and the effects that …

Apocalypse Already Happened, in the Late Middle Ages, and Arguably in the 20th Century

John Green Crash Course European History #1 "starts around 1500 with the Renaissance, but believe it or not, that is not the actual beginning of history in the continent. So, today, we're going to teach you the broad outlines of the so-called Middle Ages, and look at events like the Black Plague, the Hundred Years War, …

Disasters Involving the World’s Nuclear Arsenal Have Almost Happened Too Often

I don't generally think of disaster novels and movies as worthy of alternative history, but the possibility of accidents involving the world's nuclear arsenal, or nuclear bombs getting into the wrong hands, are possible enough that it's worth seriously considering what James Blight and Janet Lang wrote on Truthdig.com:  "In his 2013 best-selling book “Command and …