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Category:
Disasters

Atomic Planes

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[Clicke either half to enlarge.]

Sometimes even generals come to their senses. The notion of airborne nuclear reactors proved too worrisome even for the military, despite the brilliant failsafe plan of catastrophic ditching into water.

Original article here.
Posted By: Paul | Date: Thu Mar 22, 2012 | Comments (10)
Category: Accidents, Disasters, Flight, Military, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1950's

Winky Dink and You



The voice of Betty Boop launched a thousand TV screen scribbles and parental curses....

Have fun playing with your "winky dink" at home!

Full story here.
Posted By: Paul | Date: Tue Jan 31, 2012 | Comments (6)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Disasters, Television, 1950's

Invasion of Astro-Monster



Learn more here.

Posted By: Paul | Date: Sun Jan 29, 2012 | Comments (5)
Category: Aliens, Death, Destruction, Disasters, Movies, 1960's, Asia, Fictional Monsters

Design the Skyline





My new favorite band! Yours too?

More info here.

Posted By: Paul | Date: Wed Jan 11, 2012 | Comments (5)
Category: Annoying Things, Disasters, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music

Worst. Cocktail. Ever.

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Posted By: Paul | Date: Fri Sep 23, 2011 | Comments (6)
Category: Disasters, 1970's, Alcohol

All Roads Lead From Rome…

The streets of Rome are a little quieter today as thousands of locals have chosen to skip work and head for the hills after a huge earthquake was predicted to hit the Italian Capital some time today by a well-known Italian seismologist, over 30 years ago!

Raffaele Bendandi was a self-taught scientist who believed that earthquakes were caused by the gravitational influence of the Sun, Moon and other planets. Though he never attempted to provide proof for his theories, which he believed were intuitively correct, Bendandi scored a number of notable successes in 1910s and 1920s that led to him being feted as “the man who can predict earthquakes” and made a Knight of the Crown of Italy by Mussolini (who also banned him from making public predictions). Because of this ban, Bendandi made no further earthquake predictions until the 1970s, when he successfully forecast the 1976 quake that hit Friuli, Italy.

Bendandi also claimed to have detected another planet, which he named Faenza, orbiting closer to the Sun than Mercury, but, like his science of ‘seismogenics’, his findings are roundly dismissed by modern scientists as imaginative but nothing more.

That he even made today’s prediction is a matter of dispute. Many sources claim that the prediction comes from dates written on notes found after his death and do not give a specific event or location at all, and even among Bendandi’s dedicated following, there is argument as to whether he predicted the Rome quake is due today or in 2511.

Still such is the reputation of Bendandi, who died in 1979, that as much as 18% of city employees are reported to have called in sick today, and many stores are closed and shuttered. (BBC News).

(Image: vichie81 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
Posted By: Dumbfounded | Date: Wed May 11, 2011 | Comments (3)
Category: Authorities and Experts, Disasters, Eccentrics, Science, Weird Theory

Not My Job, Man

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You know what? I think I'm gonna sit this one out, and leave it to the experts.
Posted By: Paul | Date: Sat Mar 19, 2011 | Comments (4)
Category: Disasters, Public Utilities, Power Generation, Technology, Asia

The Draining of Lake Peigneur

Posted By: Paul | Date: Wed Nov 03, 2010 | Comments (5)
Category: Destruction, Disasters, Stupidity, 1980's

More Dangerous Than Dynamite!



Petroleum and tidiness: a bad combo.
Posted By: Paul | Date: Fri Oct 15, 2010 | Comments (2)
Category: Death, Destruction, Disasters, Domestic

Ghost Story Comes To Life

If you're into ghost stories, this one seems fairly tame. In 1891, a passenger train derailed on a bridge near Statesville, North Carolina, killing approximately thirty people. The story claims that on the anniversary of the wreck, the sound of the crash and screaming passengers can be heard. A number of people come to the bridge for a chance to prove the legend each year. But this year, the story took an even more tragic turn when one of the "ghost hunters" was killed... by a train. You can read the details here.
Posted By: Nethie | Date: Fri Aug 27, 2010 | Comments (4)
Category: Accidents, Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Death, Disasters, History
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All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.