It would start with a headache, a fever, maybe a funny tummy. But soon enough your knee would give out, or your arm would hang limp, or you would struggle to breathe. You'd be taken to the hospital, where you'd get your diagnosis - polio. If you survived, you ran the risk of doing so with paralyzed limbs, struggling to walk on bulky leg braces. Your parents would be terrified they might lose you, and so everybody wanted the one thing that could stop all of this - a vaccine.

Videos:

• New England Journal of Medicine: The Cutter Incident, 50 Years Later

• American Experience: The Polio Crusade

• The Iron Lung and Polio by M.Rockoff | OPENPediatrics

Articles and books:

• Polio: An American Story, by David M. Oshinsky

• The Cutter Incident, by Dr. Paul Offit

• NEJM: The Cutter Incident

In a bustling city of pirates and wickedness, one might think things couldn't get any more dangerous. But in the Jamaican city of Port Royal in 1692, that thought would be tested, and tested hard.

Videos:

• History of Port Royal (Underwater Cities)

Articles and books:

• Apocalypse 1692: Empire, Slavery, and the Great Port Royal Earthquake, by Ben Hughes

• Historic Earthquakes: Jamaica, 1692 June 07 UTC

• Jamaica Port Royal

If you'd like to donate to the GFM for my car, you can find that here:

https://gofund.me/a0585132

To raise money for car repairs, Jennifer answers the question you've all been wondering - how well can she talk about a disaster while ... let's say "not sober."

Please help Jennifer fix her car! It takes our esteemed cohost Professor on rides to go see cows and he therefore cannot live without it. Links below:

GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/59bec8ad

Paypal: disasterarea@mail.com

Cashapp: $disasterareapod

Venmo: @disasterareapodcast

It was almost the end of a typical Tuesday for workers at the Sofa Super Store in Charleston, South Carolina, in June of 2007, and several of them went out to the loading dock to smoke and kill a little time. One stray cigarette butt thrown too near the trash, and within an hour and a half nine firefighters would be dead.

Videos:

• Charleston Fire Department’s recovery from deadly Sofa Super Store fire

• First hour of dispatch audio from the Sofa Super Store fire

• Charleston 9: The Ultimate Sacrifice

• Line-of-Duty Death and Injury Investigations - NIST Fire Modeling - The Charleston Investigation

Articles and books:

• Newsweek: 'It looked like Hell was burning'

• Post and Courier: Sofa store owner tells his side

• Post and Courier: Trapped: The story of nine Charleston firefighters' deaths

• NIST Study on Charleston Furniture Store Fire Calls for National Safety Improvements

• Remembering the Charleston 9: 17 years after deadly Sofa Super Store fire

• The Sofa Super Store fire: The blaze that reshaped the Charleston Fire Department

On a warm November evening in 1996, in the rural farmland not far from Delhi, the remains of two aircraft plummeted from the skies. The collision which caused them to fall is still the deadliest mid-air collision in history.

Videos:

• Mayday/Air Crash Investigation episode on Charkhi Dadri collision

• Disaster Breakdown: The Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision

• Remains of Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision

• "Head On"

Articles and books:

• Accident report

• Human error is blamed for crash

• At Least 349 Are Killed in Collision

• Indian Officials Gather Evidence on Midair Collision

• Haryana's Charkhi Dadri plans a memorial for 1996 mid-air collision victims

It turns out that I have not disappeared into a magical world to be romanced by a fae prince - more's the pity. Anyway, let's talk about the Los Angeles wildfire, misinformation, and knowing when you need to give yourself space so you can give others the help they need.

It was a hot and muggy summer day as the steamboat Sea Wing carried passengers down the Mississippi River for what was to be a lovely excursion to the National Guard settlement near Lake City, MN. And it was ... until the storm hit.

Videos:

• The Sea Wing Disaster

• So Minnesota: Haunted history of the Sea Wing disaster

• Sea Wing Disaster on KSMQ's "Off 90" (Sponsored by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment)

Articles and books:

• Shipwrecked on Lake Pepin: The Sea Wing disaster

• Historic Disasters in Southeast Minnesota, by Steve Gardiner

• The Sea Wing disaster killed 98, yet the tragedy is little known beyond Red Wing