26Jonestown massacre
Just a handful of people survived the mass suicide at Jonestown in 1978 where over 900 people took their lives, including a hearing-impaired man that didn’t hear the announcements over the loudspeaker, and an elderly woman who slept through the whole thing.
27. The Elixir Tragedy spurred Congress to empower the US Food and Drug Administration to monitor drug safety. 71 adults and 34 children died in the fall of 1937 after taking a drug called Elixir Sulfanilamide to treat a variety of ailments, from gonorrhea to sore throat.
28. Before the sinking of RMS Lusitania, the German Embassy in New York opted to put a warning in 50 newspapers advising passengers not to board the ship. They went anyway and 1198 people died. The ship was carrying undeclared ammunition as cargo, making it a legitimate military target just as the Germans had claimed. This incident was the deciding factor for USA to enter World War 1.
29. Palawan massacre occurred on 14 December 1944, during World War II, near the city of Puerto Princesa in the Philippine province of Palawan. Allied soldiers, imprisoned near the city, were killed by Imperial Japanese soldiers. American soldiers were lit on fire by sounding an air raid siren that led them to a trench filled with gasoline instead of an air-raid shelter. Of the 150 American POWs, only 11 survived and escaped to American lines.
30. The heat from the Vesuvius eruption was so intense, the skulls of those caught in it literally exploded by the pressure of vaporizing brain tissue and boiling blood.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
31London Beer Flood
The "London Beer Flood" of 1814 spilled 323,000 imperial gallons of beer into the streets of London; killing eight people and destroying two homes. The 1500 cubic meter flood was ruled as an "Act of God" and nobody was held responsible.
32. During the Rwandan genocide, a priest named Athanase Seromba lured around 2000 Tutsis into his church under the promise of protection, then ordered the church with all those inside bulldozed and shot the survivors.
33. During the Columbine High School massacre, two 9.8 kilogram propane bombs were planted in the school cafeteria right before lunch. Had the bombs not fail to detonate, it is estimated that 488 students in the cafeteria at the time would have been killed or severely injured as a result.
34. Bhopal gas disaster was the worst industrial disaster ever, killing close to 4000 people in roughly two weeks. At least 25,000 people are estimated to have died in the years after the disaster and a total of 558,125 injured. On the morning of December 3, 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India due to negligence. The American CEO of the company was arrested, let out on $2100 bail and never came back to India to face charges.
35. On October 2, 1937, massacre of thousands of Haitians living on the border with the Dominican Republic began. Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley and those who could not pronounce the Spanish word “perejil” properly were slaughtered. Few bullets were used during this “Parsley Massacre.” 17000-35000 Haitians were instead bludgeoned and bayonetted, then herded into the sea, where sharks finished what the soldiers had begun.
