The Texas City disaster began with a fire in a fertilizer ship's hold — and the captain's sensible, fatal decision to seal the hatches. This is the story of the 1947 Texas City disaster: the deadliest industrial accident in American history, and the lawsuit that became the first class action ever filed against the United States government.Sources & further reading:U.S. Coast Guard Board of Investigation, Record of Proceedings — Texas City Disaster (1947)Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15 (1953)Texas City Disaster Relief Act, Pub. L. 84-378, 69 Stat. 707 (1955)Texas City Disaster Photographs, Houston & Texas History Research Collection, University of Houston Libraries Special CollectionsUniversal-International Newsreel, "Texas Blast" (April 1947), via Prelinger ArchivesMinutaglio & Davis, Disaster in the Gulf (2018)Credits:Photographs and footage: Texas City Disaster Photographs, Houston & Texas History Research Collection, University of Houston Libraries Special Collections; Jim Evans, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Houston-media, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Prelinger Archives; Library of Congress; Chronicling America (Library of Congress).Narrated by Harper.Music: Lightless Dawn by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC-BY 4.0More strange true history: youtube.com/@skippedpagesChapters:0:00 The Smoke Over the Grandcamp2:39 The Cargo Nobody Feared3:48 The Explosion4:34 The Fire Department5:42 The Second Ship7:19 Five Hundred and Eighty-One7:53 The Country Answers8:55 The Government in the Paper Bags9:48 Dalehite v. United States10:46 Four to Three11:32 Relief, Not JusticeNew stories every week — follow Skipped Pages so the next one's waiting for you.

The Tuskegee syphilis study ran for forty years: the United States Public Health Service told six hundred men in Macon County, Alabama, that it was treating their "bad blood," while the study was built to run until every man was dead and autopsied. When penicillin became the standard cure for syphilis, the Service kept it from them — even striking their names from wartime draft-board treatment lists. This is the paper trail: the letters, the journals, the memos, and the one investigator who spent six years objecting inside the system before he went to the press.Narrated by Harper.Music: Lightless Dawn by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC-BY 4.0More strange true history: youtube.com/@skippedpages

The 1900 Galveston hurricane is still the deadliest natural disaster in American history, and the warning that could have emptied the city was stopped in writing eleven days before landfall. Forecasters in Havana had the storm pointed at Texas — this is the record of their forecast, the letter that halted its telegrams, and the city that had already been told not to worry.Narrated by Harper.Music: Lightless Dawn by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC-BY 4.0More strange true history: youtube.com/@skippedpages