The Great Halifax Explosion by John U. Bacon
One of my side interests is reading about disasters. It's always fascinated me that such horrible destruction happened in fairly modern history, yet remains largely unknown in today's world. Oftentimes people are completely oblivious about something that was in all the newspapers and largely known by everyone at the time, and seemed utterly unforgettable. The Sultana, a river boat carrying Civil War soldiers back home after the war, exploded on the Mississippi River with 1,800 killed. The Eastland, a passenger ship that capsized next to a dock in the Chicago River in 1915, killing 848 people. The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston, where 21 people were killed by yes--a flood of maple syrup racing down the streets. There are so many, sadly, and I think the only one I have yet to read about is the Lusitania. I had heard about the Halifax explosion, but this was the first book I read about it, and it was fascinating. ...