Manmade Catastrophes
Uses dramatic, deeply researched storytelling and archival footage to explore some of the worst disasters caused by man. Some are accidents sprouting from hubris, greed or incompetence, others a result of malice and a complete disregard for fellow human beings. Whether it’s collapses, fires, riots, stampedes, crashes, explosions, famines, massacres, war crimes or genocide, every manmade calamity has lessons we can learn from—both about the complex human follies that enabled them, as well as how they can be prevented from ever happening again.
Episodes
When a ship smuggling more than 700 desperate migrants sank off the coast of Greece in 2023, it laid bare the routinely deadly consequences of hardline anti-refugee policies in Europe, cover-ups by authorities, and indifference—even disdain—that had developed toward some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
To see a full list of sources on this episode, the full transcript, or to sign up for email alerts or get i...
As the American economy sours, demagogues, labor leaders and politicians intensify attacks on Chinese immigrants and enflame hatred that will precipitate mass expulsions and murder on a scale that can only be described as ethnic cleansing.
For sources, a transcript or to sign up for email alerts or see other places to find us, visit: https://manmadecatastrophes.com/2026/01/31/the-rock-springs-chinese-massacre-part-2/
As Chinese laborers poured into the 19th century American West, many Whites saw them as an economic – and even civilizational – threat. Racist animosity, dehumanization and scapegoating precipitated the Chinese Exclusion Act, but it didn’t end there. Grassroots ethnic cleansing campaigns would terrorize Chinese up and down the West Coast, resulting in mass expulsions, violence, and sometimes, mass murder.
When more than 30 girls sought shelter in their school’s rotting outhouse building, a floor collapse sent them plunging into what can only be described as worse than the pits of hell. ‘The Cincinnati Privy Disaster’ would be a life and death struggle in 11 years of accumulated human waste that would prove too much for many of the girls to overcome.
For sources, photos and transcript, visit https://manmadecatastroph...
What was supposed to be a festive party for the Russian working class to celebrate their new monarch became one of the deadliest human crushes in history. The Khodynka Tragedy of 1896 would kill thousands and come to be seen as the beginning of the end for Russia’s monarchy. For show notes, sources and transcript, go to: https://manmadecatastrophes.com/
As communism was collapsing around the world in the late-80s and early-90s, sheer incompetence and an insistence on maintaining absolute control over 22 million people in the world's last Stalinist state led to a disastrous famine that may have killed 15 percent of the country's entire population.
For show notes, sources and transcript, go to: https://manmadecatastrophes.com/
As American settlers pour in for the Gold Rush and California ascends to US statehood, government policy takes an even darker turn toward indigenous people, who are becoming seen less as a source of labor to exploit, and more as a nuisance it would be better to exterminate. Military units, militias, and scores of sadistic individuals will try to do just that, with full government backing.
The arrival of Spanish colonizers in the mid-16th century set in motion a course of events that would devastate the lives of the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Californians. Under American rule three centuries later, it would culminate in systemic mass murder and an attempt to completely eradicate the native population.
For show notes, sources and transcript, go to: manmadecatastrophes.com
The rushed construction of a Roman stadium in 27 AD led to a catastrophic failure during its inaugural gladiatorial games, which likely killed more than 20,000 people and devastated the Roman Empire.
For source notes, images and to see a 3D rendering of what the Fidenae Amphitheater likely looked like, go to https://manmadecatastrophes.com/the-fidenae-amphitheater-collapse
As the forces fueling an anti-feminist backlash were accelerating in the years after the Global Financial Crisis, one figure would electrify misogynist incels and inspire a rapid-fire succession of terrorist rampage killers.
For show notes and a transcript, go to manmadecatastrophes.com
To listen to part 1 of 'The Incel Massacres', go to https://manmadecatastrophes.com/incel-massacres-part-1/
What began in the 90s as a constructive mutual support network, 'involuntary celibacy' would gradually give rise to a grotesquely misogynist worldview that would radicalize scores of young men. Its unbelievable and still-growing death toll has some governments wondering whether Inceldom should be considered a terrorist ideology.
For show notes and a transcript, go to manmadecatastrophes.com
Often remembered simply as the less momentous second atomic bombing, Nagasaki was a separate event from Hiroshima that some historians have a much harder time justifying. Marked by miscalculations before, blunders during and censorship after, the city's (likely completely unnecessary) obliteration was shocking enough that nuclear weapons were taken away from the US military's sole discretion.
Engineering hubris and political fanaticism in Mao’s China led to the deadliest structural and technological failure in human history, claiming as many as 230,000 lives. Yet to this day, very few know anything about it.
For show notes, transcript and photos of the Banqiao disaster, go to manmadecatastrophes.com
An introduction to our series that unpacks the disasters wrought by human folly..
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