Dangerous Day Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1980s

The Hillsborough Disaster occurred on 15th April 1989, on the day of an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest held at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. There had been previous problems caused as a result of crowds building up in the Leppings Lane end, leading to crushes with supporters being injured. On the day of the match, a bottleneck again built up at the Leppings Lane end, with Liverpool supporters accidentally going through the wrong turnstiles and not being able to get out. Three additional gates were opened to allow the fans in. However, with fans still streaming into the pens as the match began, the build-up of people eventually caused one of the metal barriers to collapse, and the surge of people moving forward caused others to be crushed by people falling on top of them, and further crushes against the metal fencing. Supporters helped each other over the fencing and pulled each other to safety, but the crush caused several people to be asphyxiated to death while standing in the pens, while others were crushed to death against the fencing. The police and ambulance services were overwhelmed, and other fans helped to carry away the wounded and the dead, using advertising hoardings as stretchers. The match was abandoned five minutes in. 94 people died on the day, with the death toll later reaching 95 after 14-year-old Lee Nicol's life support was switched off; 4 years later, Tony Bland, the 96th and final victim, also had his life support switched off.

For years, families of the victims and survivors of the disaster campaigned for justice, believing that the deaths were caused by negligence and lack of duty of care, and for further enquiries to be made into the disaster. A second round of inquests in 2016 showed that supporters had died as a result of negligence by the South Yorkshire Police and ambulance staff, and the layout of the stadium. Six people were subsequently charged with manslaughter and perverting the course of justice.

Answer: 1910s

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was based on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of the Asch Building in Greenwich Village, and produced a type of women's blouse known as a shirtwaist. Many of the workers were Jewish and Italian immigrant women and girls, some as young as 14.

On the afternoon of 25th March 1911, a fire - thought to have been caused by a cigarette or match - flared up in a scrap bin on the eighth floor, where piles of flammable cloth were stored. Although a bookkeeper on the eighth floor was able to warn people on the tenth floor over the phone, no alarm reached the ninth floor. Two of the stairways were unusable as escape routes; one was blocked by flames and the only escape route was up towards the roof, and the other was locked. Some employees managed to escape using the lifts, but the heat eventually made the lifts unusable. Many victims fell to their deaths, either by jumping off the burning building, or standing on a fire escape which collapsed from the weight of the people on it. Others were burned to death or asphyxiated inside the building. Even the fire brigade were unable to do much, as their ladders did not reach high enough and the impact of falling bodies tore their nets. In total, 146 women and girls - including two 14-year-olds - and 23 men died in what is now known to be one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the US.

Answer: 1930s

The Holodomor, or Golodomor, was a manmade famine in the Ukraine that took place over 1932 and 1933. A similar famine known as the Kazakhstan Catastrophe occurred in Kazakhstan around the same time.

The estimated death toll of the Holodomor is thought to be between 3.3 and 7.5 million. Many factors are thought to have contributed to mass starvation, including seizure of grain by Soviet authorities, forced collectivisation, and cutbacks on rations. Lice populations also increased, spreading disease. Peasants were treated as enemies of the workers, who hoarded grain for their own gain. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was born in 1931, recalled that almost half the population of his home village of Privolnoye starved to death. Other peasants were forcibly resettled or sent to labour camps.

As an aside, I can recommend 'The Unwomanly Face of War' by Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian writer who set out to cover the unheard stories of Soviet women who fought in the Second World War. Although it does not cover the Holodomor itself, among those she interviewed were survivors of the Holodomor. One woman recalled a girl who ate frozen horse manure to survive; another told of Ukrainians she met who talked of people resorting to cannibalism.

Answer: 2000s

The Indian Ocean earthquake, also known as the Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake, and subsequent tsunami occurred on Boxing Day 2004. It was an undersea earthquake with an epicentre at Sumatra, and was triggered by a rupture between two minor tectonic plates, the Burma and Indian Plates. It led to several tsunamis, some as high as 30 feet, that hit the coasts of countries along the Indian Ocean. Indonesia had the highest death toll; Sri Lanka, Thailand and India were also badly affected. The earthquake was so powerful, it sent waves across the globe as far as Alaska, while the tsunami reached South Africa and Antarctica. Several aftershocks also occurred in the region of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Damage caused by the earthquake has been estimated to be at $19.9 billion. There were no tsunami warnings in the Indian Ocean, though some scuba divers noticed violent currents underwater. Some people, including indigineous Onge people in the Andaman Islands - whose folklore told of tsunamis - and a young British girl, who had been studying tsunamis at school and whose family were staying in Thailand, recognised the signs and were luckily able to get to safety. However, thousands of people, locals and tourists (with Sweden and Germany having the highest death tolls) alike, were unable to escape the tsunami, and were swept away and drowned, or killed by collapsing buildings. Humanitarian efforts from around the world helped to minimise the spread of disease from dead bodies, but an estimated 227,898 people were confirmed dead, with others still missing, and many more homeless.

Answer: 2010s

Grenfell Tower was a 24-storey block of flats in North Kensington in London. On 14th June 2017, a fire started, thought to have been caused by a faulty fridge-freezer on the fourth floor. It spread rapidly throughout the tower block; the cladding used on the outside of the tower was thought to have contributed to the spread of the fire. A BBC report stated that the cladding would have released '14 times more heat than a key government test allows', with the polyethylene in the cladding acting as fuel, and residents of the building had expressed concerns about safety before the fire started.

The fire burned for over 60 hours, trapping residents on the top floors; firefighters had to assist residents down the stairwells, as they were clogged with smoke, and over 250 London firefighters attended the building. For days after the initial fire broke out, the top floors were unsafe for the fire services to enter, and it took five months to obtain a death toll; police used sources from 999 calls to fast food orders to ascertain who had died. 72 deaths were confirmed, with the youngest victim being a 6-month-old girl. Most of the dead were thought to have been in flats between the 11th to 23rd floors; only two people managed to escape from the top two floors. Surviving residents stated that there were no fire alarms, and that they only knew about the fire because they heard people screaming or banging on doors, or saw smoke.

Answer: 1950s

Le Pain Maudit ('the cursed bread') was the nickname for a mass poisoning that took place in Pont-Saint-Esprit, a small town in the Gard department in the south of France. The poisoning took place over a single day, 15th August 1951, and is thought to have been caused by ergot, a type of fungus that grows on rye and other cereals. The victims had all eaten bread from the Roch Briand bakery, which was accused of having used contaminated rye. According to the 'British Medical Journal', although only small amounts of poisoned bread were consumed, they contained high enough concentrations of poison to induce nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, followed by prolonged insomnia. Some victims experienced psychosis and hallucinations; doctors treating them cited visions of animals and flames. 250 people were affected by the ergot poisoning; 4 of them died, though the doctors quoted in the 'British Medical Journal' article noted that they were all elderly patients.

Other theories for the poisoning have been suggested; writer Hank Albarelli Jr., suggested that the poisoning was a conspiracy on the part of the CIA, and that it was an LSD experiment gone wrong that actually caused the poisoning, citing the extreme behaviours and hallucinations shown by the victims. Historian Steven Kaplan, meanwhile, put forward nitrogen trichloride as a possible cause for the poisoning, as it had sometimes been used as a bleaching agent in flour. However, ergot is generally accepted to be the cause.

Answer: 1990s

The MS Estonia was a cruise ferry travelling to Sweden at the time of the disaster. The ship's name was changed from 'Wasa King' to 'Estonia' when it was acquired by the shipping company Estline, in tribute to Estonia gaining independence from the Soviet Union. Many of the ship's crew were Estonian, and several Swedish passengers were reported to be of Estonian descent. Of the 852 victims, over half were Swedish; the next highest number of casualties were Estonian.

On the night of 28th September 1994, the weather was poor and uneven cargo distribution caused the ship to list, but the real trouble began when a heavy wave hit the ship and the vehicle deck began to flood. As the ship listed even further, passengers were forced to climb to safety, while others were trapped inside their cabins or fell to their deaths down corridors. 134 passengers were rescued, though one later died in hospital. Even those who had managed to escape the ship were not safe; by the time rescue helicopters arrived, a third of passengers who had escaped drowned, or died of hypothermia in the freezing sea. Only 94 bodies were recovered. 650 people were inside the Estonia as it sank. It was one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century.

Here is a link to an article by William Langewiesche in the 'Atlantic', describing the disaster in vivid detail: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/

Answer: 1970s

The Tenerife Airport Disaster occurred on 27th March 1977, when two Boeing 747 planes crashed into each other on the runway at Tenerife North Airport, or Los Rodeos Airport as it was then known. Both planes were headed for Gran Canaria Airport; KLM Flight 4805 had come from Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, and Pan Am Flight 1736 from JFK in New York. However, they were forced to change route after a bomb planted by a Canarian separatist group at Gran Canaria Airport exploded.

Visibility on the runway where the Pan Am flight was was poor, and neither plane crew could see the other. The KLM captain mistakenly believed the plane had been cleared for takeoff, and both crews sent out a radio call at the same time, which meant that vital instructions were blocked. As the Pan Am taxied down the runway, the KLM came into view, moving at takeoff speed. Although the Pan Am made a sharp left turn, and the KLM tried to take off, it was too late, and the planes crashed. The fuel ignited, causing an explosion and fire that killed everyone on board the KLM, and 335 people on board the Pan Am. Some of the crew members, including the captain, and passengers were able to escape through holes in the fuselage. With a total of 583 fatalities, the crash was one of the deadliest aviation accidents of all time.

Answer: 1960s

The Nedelin castrophe was an explosion that occurred on 24th October 1960 during a missile test at the cosmodrome at Baikonur, in what is now Kazakhstan. It was named after Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, Chief Marshal of the Artillery in the Soviet forces, and one of the victims. The missile in question was a prototype of the ICBM R-16, which was being prepared for a test flight.

As Nedelin insisted on the test being carried out before 7th November, the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, time was short and several safety procedures were not carried out as a result. A few minutes before the launch, missile designer Mikhail Yangel nipped out for a cigarette, a decision which saved his life. A short circuit caused the second stage engines to fire prematurely, which in turn ignited the fuel tanks below and caused a massive explosion. Testers standing on the platforms were burned alive or poisoned by fuel vapours. Other personnel who tried to escape were prevented from doing so by the security fence. According to missile developer Boris Chertok, many of the bodies were so badly damaged, they were unrecognisable; Nedelin himself was identified by his Gold Star medal, while chief designer Boris Konoplev was identified due to being visibly larger than the other corpses. Nikita Khrushchev ordered the explosion to be covered up, but as Nedelin's death could not go unnoticed, an official story that he had died in a plane crash was released. The official death toll was given at 78, though other sources have stated it could be anywhere between 92 and 126.

Answer: 1900s

The Monongah mining disaster was an explosion that occurred on 6th December 1907 at the Fairmont Coal Company's No. 6 and No. 8 mines in Monongah, West Virginia. Although West Virginia was a leader in coal production, working conditions in its mines were very dangerous, and the death rate of miners in West Virginia was higher than any other state. At Monongah, a massive explosion was caused by the ignition of powder in Mine No. 8, killing most of the miners instantly, while others suffocated due to the build-up of toxic gases. Although the official death toll was 362, it is thought to be higher as many miners brought their relatives and children down the mine with them. Fires and smoke made rescue efforts difficult and only one miner, Peter Urban, was rescued alive, though four others had managed to escape.

Many of the miners who died were Italian emigrants, particularly from the southern Italian town of San Giovanni in Fiore; a memorial to those who died was erected there in 2003. On the 100th anniversary of the disaster in 2007, the town of Molise gave a bell to the town of Monongah, which was placed in the town square.