May 31, 1889. It’s raining in Johnstown, PA, causing some small flooding. But the townsfolk were used to it – this city of 30,000 was nestled in a valley between two rivers. What happened next was something every person in Johnstown feared, but hoped would never come true. The old dam at the millionaires’ resort, high up in the mountains, had failed... and u ... Show More
Mar 16
HTW Live: Busting the Myths of Irish Immigration — Recorded at the Tenement Museum
March 18, 1879. A crowd gathers around an indoor track in Brooklyn, NY, as an Irish immigrant named Bartholomew O’Donnell attempts a strange feat: walking 80 miles in 26 hours. Newspapers claim he’s eighty years old. Lap after lap, he circles the track: smoking a pipe, sipping ho ... Show More
40m 56s
Mar 12
From Radio Diaries: Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier
Why did Orson Welles take on a murder mystery? Listen for yourself. This week, we're sharing a special preview of Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier from the podcast Radio Diaries. In this series, we learn how Welles used his platform to shed light on a crime in a small, southern ... Show More
11m 5s
Feb 2024
Johnstown Flood | The Dam | 1
<p>It’s May, 30th 1889, and the South Fork Dam in Western Pennsylvania is in danger. After nearly a month of hard rain, eight inches have fallen in one day, filling the lake behind the dam to capacity. And the dam’s owners, the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club, have cut corner ... Show More
47m 2s
Mar 2024
The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Mount Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii in 79AD is well known, but far fewer people know about the last time the volcano erupted in 1944.It was World War Two, and families in southern Italy had already lived through a German invasion, air bombardment, and surrender to the ... Show More
9m 15s
Sep 2018
National Parks - The Great Disaster | 4
<p>In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco was torn apart by a huge earthquake–but it was the subsequent fires that did the most damage. As the city sought to rebuild, it also sought a more secure water supply, to break the stranglehold ... Show More
40m 23s