Manmade Catastrophes
Uses dramatic, deeply researched storytelling and archival footage to explore some of the worst disasters caused by man. Some are accidents sprouting from hubris, greed or incompetence, others a result of malice and a complete disregard for fellow human beings. Whether it’s collapses, fires, riots, stampedes, crashes, explosions, famines, massacres, war crimes or genocide, every manmade calamity has lessons we can learn from—both about the complex human follies that enabled them, as well as how they can be prevented from ever happening again.
- Update frequency
- every 17 days
- Average duration
- 49 minutes
- Episodes
- 11
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
The Cincinnati Outhouse Disaster
When more than 30 girls sought shelter in their school’s rotting outhouse building, a floor collapse sent them plunging into what can only be described as worse than the pits of hell. ‘The Cincinnati…
The Czar’s Catastrophic Coronation
What was supposed to be a festive party for the Russian working class to celebrate their new monarch became one of the deadliest human crushes in history. The Khodynka Tragedy of 1896 would kill thou…
North Korea's Arduous March
As communism was collapsing around the world in the late-80s and early-90s, sheer incompetence and an insistence on maintaining absolute control over 22 million people in the world's last Stalinist s…
The California Genocide: Part 2
As American settlers pour in for the Gold Rush and California ascends to US statehood, government policy takes an even darker turn toward indigenous people, who are becoming seen less as a source of …
The California Genocide: Part 1
The arrival of Spanish colonizers in the mid-16th century set in motion a course of events that would devastate the lives of the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Californians. Under American rule …
The Fidenae Amphitheater Collapse
The rushed construction of a Roman stadium in 27 AD led to a catastrophic failure during its inaugural gladiatorial games, which likely killed more than 20,000 people and devastated the Roman Empire.…
The Incel Massacres: Part 2
As the forces fueling an anti-feminist backlash were accelerating in the years after the Global Financial Crisis, one figure would electrify misogynist incels and inspire a rapid-fire succession of t…
The Incel Massacres: Part 1
What began in the 90s as a constructive mutual support network, 'involuntary celibacy' would gradually give rise to a grotesquely misogynist worldview that would radicalize scores of young men. Its u…
Nagasaki: The 'Last' Nuclear Attack
Often remembered simply as the less momentous second atomic bombing, Nagasaki was a separate event from Hiroshima that some historians have a much harder time justifying. Marked by miscalculations be…
Banqiao Dam: The Biggest Disaster You’ve Never Heard of
Engineering hubris and political fanaticism in Mao’s China led to the deadliest structural and technological failure in human history, claiming as many as 230,000 lives. Yet to this day, very few kno…
Manmade Catastrophes Trailer
An introduction to our series that unpacks the disasters wrought by human folly..