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.

This diagram depicts what happens if the Space Shuttle's Orbiter needs to return to the launch site.

What is it like to actually sail around Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America?

It didn't matter what Catherine said. People, everywhere, believed that she and her cow had started the "Great Fire."

This NASA graphic highlights the Space Shuttle Challenger, her last crew, the patches from her numerous missions and a featured spacewalk.

Charles Nelson Reilly - who became a famous actor, comedian, director and drama teacher - was attending the Ringling Bros. circus, in Hartford, on the...

On the 1st of December, 1958, Our Lady of the Angels School, in Chicago, was the scene of a catastrophic fire.

Christmas Island, located in the Indian Ocean off the coast of northwest Australia, is the top of an underwater mountain.

A month after the great 1906 quake, George Lawrence sends a series of kites aloft. He attaches his camera to the lowest kite and, from the air, photo...

America's Civil War significantly impacted Missouri, then a ''Slave State'' (but one that remained in the Union). Refugees, from Missouri's northern-b...

Clint Hill, a Secret Service officer for JFK, shared his memory of the day President Kennedy was fatally shot.

After several hours of erupting, the gas pressure propelling Vesuvius’ eruption plume, in 79 AD, begins to falter. The eruption cloud itself begins ...

On the 1st of February, 2003, two RNAF (Royal Dutch Air Force) pilots were training on a Longbow Apache Helicopter (AH-64) out of Fort Hood, Texas. P...

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