There is a tragic history in New York's North Country of human folly, natural disasters, deadly explosions, terrible train wrecks and other calamities. The famous Barnum & Bailey Circus suffered deeply after its train crashed between Norwood and Potsdam in 1889 and many animals died. Beloved Thousand Island Park was almost entirely destroyed by a devastating fire in 1912, leveling hotels and businesses, and the once-thriving park never fully recovered. The great Massena earthquake measured 5.9 on the Richter scale in 1944 and caused tremendous structural damage, including destroying nearly all chimneys in the area. Author Cheri L. Farnsworth compiles both the man-made and natural disasters that shocked the North Country in the hundred years between 1850 and 1950.

Catastrophes, it seems, are becoming more frequent in the twenty-first century. According to UN statistics, every year approximately two hundred million people are directly affected by natural disasters_seven times the number of people who are affected by war. Discussions about global warming and fatal disasters such as Katrina and the Tsunami of 2004 have heightened our awareness of natural disasters and of their impact on both local and global communities. Hollywood has also produced numerous disaster movies in recent years, some of which have become blockbusters. This volume demonstrates that natural catastrophes_earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc._have exercised a vast impact on humans throughout history and in almost every part of the world. It argues that human attitudes toward catastrophes have changed over time. Surprisingly, this has not necessarily led to a reduction of exposure or risk. The organization of the book resembles a journey around the globe_from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and from the Pacific through South America and Mexico to the United States. While natural disasters appear everywhere on the globe, different cultures, societies, and nations have adopted specific styles for coping with disaster. Indeed, how humans deal with catastrophes depends largely on social and cultural patterns, values, religious belief systems, political institutions, and economic structures. The roles that catastrophes play in society and the meanings they are given vary from one region to the next; they differ_and this is one of the principal arguments of this book_from one cultural, political, and geographic space to the next. The essays collected here help us to understand not only how people in different times throughout history have learned to cope with disaster but also how humans in different parts of the world have developed specific cultural, social, and technological strategies for doing so.

Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but also within the same societies according to social groups, ethnicity and gender. They also demonstrate how studying past disasters, including earthquakes, droughts, floods and epidemics, can provide a lens through which to understand the social, economic and political functioning of past societies and reveal features of a society which may otherwise remain hidden from view. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Eerie occurrences, spooky events, unsolved mysteries, and terrifying specters haunt Connecticut. Tales ofBlood-thirsty dolls, haunted lighthouses and a phantom plane crash tingle the spine of travelers to Haunted Connecticut. Connecticut is known for haunted islands; phantom ships, trains, and planes; sightings of UFOs, aliens, and real men in black (MIB); and encounters with Bigfoot and evil black dogs.There have been plenty of strange atmospheric anomalies, such as Connecticut’s Dark Day; solid clouds that came crashing down from the sky in the Litchfield Hills in 1758; the Moodus Noises, which have yet to be fully understood; and Notch Hollow near Bolton, where car windows fog over for no apparent reason while passing an abandoned railroad track. Indeed, the stories in this book, covering the whole spectrum of the supernatural, are fun to read in a satisfyingly spooky kind of way.

This book tells the story of the Earth itself, explaining the interplay of its gradual geologi- levolution, presented as a generally slow and safe process, with the sudden manifestations of natural hazards, which involve disasters that affect the environment and lead to huge material damage and human losses. The natural forces at play, whether they are violent explosions ofvolcanic eruptions or almost imperceptible deformations of subsurface rock strata, nally- sulting in devastating earthquakes, all control the existence and destiny of a certain part of the global population. The development of man’s existence down through history has depended upon his understanding of the world in which he lives, and upon his ability to turn to his own best use the materials that were there for the taking. However, he has had not only to furnish himself with food, water, building materials, and energy to protect himself against occasional natural adversities. Protecting himself from them meant comprehending their causes, and the essential core of his understanding was in recording and depicting them. This book is written for anyone interested in the Earth in general, and in natural disasters in particular, presenting a unique collection of historical illustrations of volcanic eruptions and earthquake events and their repercussions. The book represents a golden mean between sci- ti c and popular works.

Covid-19, disastrous series of earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria... How well prepared are young people to understand such catastrophic events and their impact upon societies? Since the beginning of recorded human history, pandemics and natural disasters have highly impacted the historical narratives of mankind. Each time, they remind humans how fragile they are and how limited their knowledge is. Despite their impact, these events are given little attention in history education. The first thematic report of the Observatory on History Teaching in Europe (OHTE) analyses how pandemics and natural disasters are taught across different levels of education. It gives a detailed overview of the teaching of the two topics in OHTE’s 16 member states, along with a cross country analysis – combining information provided by educational authorities and by history teachers themselves. The report refers to important areas of concern such as the inclusion of pandemics and natural disasters in history curricula, teachers’ pedagogical decisions about their teaching, multiperspectival approaches but also the use of scapegoating during these times of crises. The observatory’s mission is to provide a clear picture of the state of history teaching in Europe. Within the countries that are party to the observatory, this is done through OHTE reports on the state of history teaching and thematic reports, which explore particular areas of interest and how they are handled in history lessons. The observatory’s vision is embodied by its motto: “Teaching history, grounding democracy”. In practice, this means that it promotes quality history education in order to improve the understanding of democratic culture among young people. The Observatory on History Teaching in Europe is a Council of Europe enlarged partial agreement.

Historical disaster research is still a young field. This book discusses the experiences of natural disasters in different cultures, from Europe across the Near East to Asia. It focuses on the pre-industrial era and on the question of similarities, differences and transcultural dynamics in the cultural handling of natural disasters. Which long-lasting cultural patterns of perception, interpretation and handling of disasters can be determined? Have specific types of disasters changed the affected societies? What have people learned from disasters and what not? What adaptation and coping strategies existed? Which natural, societal and economic parameters play a part? The book not only reveals the historical depth of present practices, but also reveals possible comparisons that show globalization processes, entanglements and exchanges of ideas and practices in pre-modern times.

Murphy explores whether technological development inadvertently constructed new vulnerabilities, thereby manufacturing a natural disaster. As the extreme weather in the ice storm may foreshadow what will occur with global warming, Leadership in Disaster also explores the politics, economics, ethics, and cultural predispositions involved in climate change, investigating how modern societies create both the risks they assume are acceptable and the burden of managing them. An innovative comparison with Amish communities, where the same extreme weather had trivial consequences, is instructive for avoiding future socio-economic catastrophes.