Calamities on a Monday

[thebitterguy]

Okay, so while surfing LJ (in the strange, manual method I must use now that work has blocked only friends pages from my view. No, seriously, I can look at individual LJs, but ), I noticed a post by trollprincess where she mentions having a copy of Laura MacDonald's The Curse of the Narrows.

It's a book about the Halifax Explosion, which is one of the great maritime disasters of history, where a French munitions ship collided with a Norweigan relief ship in Halifax harbour. The munitions ship exploded, causing the most powerful manmade explosion until Trinity. Two thousand Haligonians* and citizens of the surrounding area were killed.

I looked at the Amazon link she proferred for it, and noticed that it had a "Frequently Bought Together" note. Apparently, after reading about the Halifax Explosion, people are also interested in reading Dark Tide, a book by Stephen Puleo that details the great Boston Molasses Disaster.

The description is an interesting one.

In this volume, Puleo, a contributor to American History magazine, sets out to determine whether the collapse of a molasses tank that sent a tidal wave of 2.3 million gallons of the sticky liquid through Boston's North End and killed 21 people was the work of Italian anarchists or due to negligence by the tank's owner, United States Industrial Alcohol.

Damn. That’s pretty darn nasty. Although the thought of a tidal wave of molasses sweeping through city streets veeeerrrrryyyy slooooooowly is amusing. If horrible.


*One of my favourite words, and curse my wife for being from Dartmouth instead.

Comments

[iamheavenrender.livejournal.com]

Man, I've always wished there was footage - or really good photos - of that molasses disaster.

The idea that anarchists thought seriously about trying to drown a city in syrup is pretty choice, too.

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

It'd make a great plot for a pulp novel, certainly.

[iamheavenrender.livejournal.com]

It does sort of beg for a cadre of loons in funny animal suits and a diabetic, rampaging zoo animal of unusual size, doesn't it?

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Yes... but what doesn't?

[iamheavenrender.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a few things I do with my wife that we won't get into here, but other than that I think I have to concede the point.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

How about "Halifaxsters"?

[thebitterguy]

It lacks the je ne sais quois of the "gonian" suffix. That sounds like they spend too much time at expensive clubs on weeknights.

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

I knew about the molassas disaster thanks to Wikipedia and their chronicle of what happend on particular days of the month. My brother was born on January 15, and we joke that his birthday disaster beats out everyone else's. (My sister comes in second with the Wall Street crash in 1987.)

[thebitterguy]

Although there's plenty of normal calamities on my birthday, I get nothing of significant interest (other than possibly the election of David Ben-Gurion).

Ah, well. I satisfy myself with Robbie Burns.

[perich.livejournal.com]

the thought of a tidal wave of molasses sweeping through city streets veeeerrrrryyyy slooooooowly is amusing.

It's one of the few things I feel guilty laughing at. Because, ha ha, molasses, but also: holy hell! drowning in hot molasses!

[thebitterguy]

It's a fairly horrifying, yet hilarious, thought.

[xxgeek.livejournal.com]

I have a movie (a local documentary that was made yeeeeears ago) about the Halifax explosion. I ended up with it after mom died. Grandma was from Halifax, mom was born there, I lived there for 6 months of my life.

Weird. I didn't think I'd ever read about the Halifax explosion on my friends list.

[thebitterguy]

There you go. The CBC did a movie about it a couple years ago, and of course, there's always the PSA.

It's a fascinating event.