History's Greatest Dumpster Fires
Hosted by Kara and EdWelcome to History's Greatest Dumpster Fires! The podcast where we don't celebrate humanity's successes, but its most fantastic failures!This show isn’t dedicated to pristine, perfect achievements—it’s dedicated to the ambitious visionaries, chaotic historical figures, and everyday blunderers who set out to do something incredible, only to royally screw it up in the process.You might ask why we spend our time digging through history's greatest mess-ups. It’s because every single one of us has botched even the best-laid plans. And you know what? That is completely okay.Let this show be your ult...
Winston Churchill's Anthrax Island Cover-up and Operation Vegetarian - Episode 87
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What do you do when your back is to the wall and you're facing total annihilation? What line of ethics are you willing to cross? How do you acknowledge that you went too far?
When World War II pushed the British Empire to the brink, Winston Churchill threw out the Geneva Convention rule book to embrace a brutal pragmatic reality: if the Nazis crossed every line, Britain had to be ready to cross right back. In this gripping deep-dive, we uncover the shocking history of Operation Vegetarian, World War...
Wang Mang: How Good Intentions Messed Up A Chinese Dynasty - Episode 86
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What happens when a 400-year dynasty gets hijacked by a Confucian scholar with a master plan? In this episode, we're diving into ancient China to uncover the dramatic 15-year interruption of the Han Dynasty by the short-lived Xin Dynasty.
Join us as we explore the rise of Wang Mang—a brilliant political powerhouse whose good intentions, radical economic reforms (like price-capping and currency shifts), and high expectations completely unraveled into total chaos. Between catastrophic Yellow River floods, displaced peasant rebellions, and a chaotic final battle on the water, this is ancient hi...
Thomas Edison's Hubris and The War of The Currents of the 1890s - Episode 85
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What happens when brilliant engineering meets raw, unadulterated corporate ego? You get the electrifying, cutthroat story of the War of the Currents
In this episode of History’s Greatest Dumpster Fires, we break down the chaotic and fascinating rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse (with Nikola Tesla behind the scenes). We explore Edison’s rise as a ruthless Gilded Age tycoon obsessed with Direct Current (DC), his brilliant but volatile relationship with a young Nikola Tesla, and the shocking, smear-filled lengths Edison went to in order to crush Alternating Current (AC...
From Complete Failure to Civil War Legend: Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh - Episode 84
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How does a guy who failed at farming, real estate, and running his family’s leather shop go on to turn the tide of the American Civil War in less than 24 hours? You get the wild, blood-soaked, and chaotic story of Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Shiloh!
In this episode of History’s Greatest Dumpster Fires, Ed and Kara break down how a man who was average (or below average) at nearly everything in life found his true calling in total wartime chaos. We explore the massive Unio...
San Diego 1916 Flood: How a Sewing Machine Salesman Flooded San Diego - Episode 83
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The Rainmaker Who Drowned San Diego: Charles Hatfield and the 1916 Flood
Throughout history, human civilization has risen and fallen by a single resource: water. When a decade-long drought threatened to ruin San Diego right as it prepared to showcase itself to the world, city officials turned to an unlikely savior: Charles Hatfield, a charismatic former sewing machine salesman turned "pluviculturist" who claimed he could coax rain from the heavens using a secret 23-ingredient chemical brew.
What began as a desperate $10,000 gamble quickly turned into one of the...
The 1888 Matchstick Strike: Phossy Jaw, White Slavery & The Girls Who Built Modern Unionism - Episode 82
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The 1888 Matchstick Strike: Phossy Jaw, White Slavery & The Matchgirls Who Built Modern Unionism
In the late 1800s, British industrial titan Bryant & May dominated the global match market. But behind their shiny reputation as a "model factory" lay a grim reality: 12-hour workdays, predatory fines, low wages, and "phossy jaw"—a devastating disease caused by white phosphorus exposure that turned gums green and destroyed the human jawbone.
When socialist activist Annie Besant published an exposé titled White Slavery in London, factory owners tried to force their workers to sig...
Balloonfest 1986: How a PR Stunt Nearly Erased Cleveland, Ohio's Epic Environmental Comeback - Episode 81
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What happens when a city known for rivers that literally catch on fire tries to fix its reputation by launching 1,429,643 balloons into a storm? We'll give you a hint: two missing bodies, multiple car wrecks, ecological issues everywhere, and a horse with brain damage!
In this episode, we trace the wild, century-long history of Cleveland, Ohio—from its rise as an industrial titan to one of the most famous PR blunders in American history.
Here’s what’s inside the episode:
A land Destined For Greatn...Movie Censorship: How Pushing Back on Bogus Policies Made the Golden Era of Film (Pt 3) - Episode 80
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How do you go from censoring a kiss longer than three seconds to a woman giving birth to the Devil’s baby in under two decades?
In the epic conclusion to our three-part series on movie censorship, we’re tracing the final, messy downfall of the Hays Code. Armed with Catholic boycotts, $25,000 fines, and the iron fist of Joseph Breen, the Production Code Administration thought they had Hollywood on a leash. What they didn't count on was the sheer spite, loop-holing genius, and legal maneuvering of iconic directors determined to push the...
Movie Censorship: How to Limit Popular Movies and Their Messages (Pt 2.) - Episode 79
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Ever feel like someone is constantly looking over your shoulder, judging your every move, and telling you "no"? Like you're being micromanaged to absolute death?
Take a deep breath and give yourself some grace. No matter how restricted, watched, or heavily policed you feel in your day-to-day life right now, at least you aren't an early 20th-century filmmaker trying to navigate the iron fist of the Hays Office. Back then, showing a little too much ankle, displaying an anti-hero, or letting a character have a drink could get your...
Movie Censorship: How the Early Days of Film Created Stars and Scandal (Pt. 1) - Episode 78
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What does it take to be a great filmmaker? If you ask Jordan Peele, Danny Boyle, or George Lucas, you’ll get completely different answers. But what happens when the art of filmmaking collides head-on with the sledgehammer of censorship?
In the first of a three-part series, Ed and Kara dive into the wild, lawless early days of cinema—before the rules were written and before the moral police took over. From Thomas Edison’s cutthroat patent wars to the incredible women, immigrants, and Jewish creators who literally built Hollywood from the gr...
Iran Contra Scandal: America's Botched Arms Deal (Pt. 2) - Episode 77
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This is part 2 of a two part series of The Day's Dumpster Fire's Iran Contra Affair. If you are just joining us, it is highly recommended that you listen to part 1 which can be found HERE. Part 1 will give some background as to why Iran and Nicaragua were such hot topics back in the 70s and 80s as well as the predicament the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan, was in at the time:
On one hand, the Cold War was still very much a thing in the 70s and 80s and America...Iran Contra Scandal: America's Botched Arms Deal (Pt. 1) - Episode 76
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Our President, Donald Trump has joined a long list of presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries who have embroiled America in the Middle East in yet another conflict. We here at The Day's Dumpster Fire don't like to take sides in terms of political parties, the Middle East has proven itself to do the exact same thing. It doesn't matter which president is in office, democrat or republican, the Middle East and America have been involved with one another for decades for one reason or another with no end in sight.
France's Ballroom Fire of 1393: Roasting a King Alive - Episode 75
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Ever suffer from a brutal case of FOMO? We’ve all been there: you get left off the guest list for the party of the year, or plans fall through at the last second, and you’re left sitting at home drowning in a sea of resentment, wondering why the universe is punishing you.
But what if missing out was actually the universe protecting you?
In this episode, Kara makes her valiant return from vacation to bring you a historical reminder that sometimes, it is a profound blessing to not...
The Dutchman's Curve Disaster: Tennessee's Deadliest Train Wreck - Episode 74
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Ever feel like your life is completely off the rails? Like you’re stuck on a runaway train, heading full steam into a dead end, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it?
Take a deep breath. Today, Ed is flying solo while Kara takes a well-deserved vacation, and he is here to offer you the ultimate perspective shift to make you feel instantly better about your current situation.
Welcome to July 9, 1918. Imagine waking up early for a routine morning commute between Memphis and Nashville, only to...
The Bat Bomb of WWII Pt 2: How the Army Torched a Brand New Base - Episode 73
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Ever feel like your biggest, most ambitious ideas are just a little too wild for the world to handle? Like you’re pouring your heart and soul into a project, only to wonder if you’ve completely lost your mind?
Take a deep breath and give yourself a break. In today's episode, Ed and Kara are back to wrap up the mind-boggling conclusion of history's most bizarre military experiment. If you've been stressing over a chaotic week, just wrap yourself in a blanket of gratitude that your job doesn't involve flash-freezing live...
The Bat Bomb of WWII Pt 1: How the Army Torched a Brand New Base - Episode 72
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In today's episode, Ed decided to go down a different kind of dumpster fire. Instead of a large volume of people being killed or injured or thousands of people losing their retirements due to sketchy accounting practices. The Bat Bomb of WWII is a testament to the creativity of the human mind in times of extreme need and how not all ideas are going to be good.
While vacationing in Carlsbad, New Mexico to watch bats, dentist / eccentric inventor, Dr. Lytle S. Adams, heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor on D...
Enron's Downfall: How a Fortune 500 Company Implodes - Episode 71
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In today's episode, Ed takes us down memory lane to one of the biggest business fraud cases of the 20th century.
Enron was a company that was the product of two major gas businesses that merged together with a vision to change how the world viewed work culture and how to make money with wild result.
For much of much of the 90s, Enron was the future of corporate mentality and high morale among employees with tons of opportunity and even more prospects of striking it rich in the wo...
Flixborough Chemical Fire: How Making Nylon Incinerated a Factory - Episode 70
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Ed is back for another "recent" historical dumpster fire in which a chemical that manufactures a chemical necessary for nylon production explodes in the largest non-WWII explosion in British history. They Nypro Flixborough chemical facility was built in the late 60's to be a sleek, state of the art facility that turned an extremely flammable substance called cyclohexane and turn it into caprolactam. Caprolactam is one of the key ingredients to making nylon which is a ubiquitous substance found everywhere in the modern era. Without nylon, everything from clothing to car parts to...
Bangladesh Bank Robbery: How Cyber Attackers Tried to Steal $1 Billion - Episode 69
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In today’s episode, Ed is back with a dumpster that can be traced back to the last decade instead of the last century. Kara’s monumental time travel into the Great Depression that changed America forever left off with the nation as the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. While that’s pretty comforting to thin, about as an American, for those outside America, that wealth is a bull’s eye for those with the skills to “hack” into it.
Therefore, Ed is going to talk about the greatest bank...
The Great Depression (Pt. 4): America Rebounds as the World Declines - Episode 68
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The time has come! We thought we'd never get there, but Kara's PhD scholarly review of the Great Depression comes to its climactic end in this episode. This is quite possibly Kara's most ambitious episode yet and this doesn't even include all the extra stuff you can find on at thedaysdumpsterfire.com!
In Part 1. Kara dove into the causes of the Great Depression and dispelled some myths such as the "Crash of 29" was solely responsible for the entire economic collapse of the country.
In Part 2. Kara looked into what H...
The Great Depression (Pt. 3): Roosevelt's New Deal to the Rescue! - Episode 67
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Welcome back for Kara's part 3 of her exploration into one of America's most influential dumpster fires in history, the Great Depression.
In Part 1. Kara dove into the causes of the Great Depression and dispelled some myths such as the "Crash of 29" was solely responsible for the entire economic collapse of the country.
In Part 2. Kara looked into what Herbert Hoover tried to do to correct things in American and how it ultimately was too little, too late. This led to Franklin Delano Roosevelt winning the 1932 election by a landslide.
<...The Great Depression (Pt. 2): How Hoover Made it So Much Worse! - Episode 66
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In this episode, Kara continues her investigation of the Great Depression. In the Great Depression Part 1, Kara dug into the various factors that caused the Great Depression such as:
Over using or extending creditThe Dust Bowl of the Midwest (check out The Dustbowl Fire - Episode 48 for more.The stock market crashing in 1929And so much more!In this episode, a newly elected Herbert Hoover inherits a thriving economy in 1928 and what was looking like four more years of a thriving nation. However, by 1930, everything had imploded. Hoover had to pull...
The Great Depression (Pt. 1): The 1929 Crash and the Rise of the Hobo - Episode 65
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In this episode, Kara is taking us way back to her favorite time period... when everything went to crap or in other words the Great Depression. She starts off with one of the most tremendous dumpster fires of the 20th century which was the stock market crash of 1929. While it was not the sole cause of the Great Depression, it was a foreboding sign of the things to come. Afterwards, Kara describes how the American work force went from one of the most prosperous in the world to mass unemployment and despair.
Deepwater Horizon (Pt. 2): How to Clean up the World's Worst Oil Disaster
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It might be a few days late, but not more than $70 billion short.
In part two of the Deepwater Horizon dumpster fire, Ed describes the ecological, economical, and legal fallout from the Deepwater Horizon explosion back on April 20, 2010. The explosion itself cost the lives of 11 me, which unto itself an unmitigated tragedy that will affect generations to come.
However, when the drill rig buckled and sank two days later, an underwater oil geyser developed that spewed up to 210,000 gallons of crude oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico.
<...Deepwater Horizon (Pt. 1): How Oil Demand Destroyed an Oil Rig
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After Kara's eight week long marathon of talking about Prohibition (Kara had been researching this four part series since July!). Ed has decided to get off the editing couch and put together an episode of his own.
The Deepwater Horizon drill rig was one of the most powerful and highly regarded oil drilling rigs in the 2000's and for good reason. It held safety records for the longest running times of no serious accidents, it held the record for the deepest well ever drilled on the bottom of the ocean, and t...
Prohibition (Pt. 4): Rise of Organized Crime... and Its Downfall - Episode 62
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We have finally come to the end of Kara's anthology of everything prohibition related. Kara has taken us from the origins of the prohibition movement and its relationship to the suffragette movement, to the colorful bootleggers and wild characters who openly broke the law to how the music and literature of the time period was affected by it and now finally organized crime and syndicates that ultimately brought the 18th Amendment to the ground.
Check out the preceding buildup of episodes all about staying "dry" HERE!
In th...
Prohibition (Pt. 3): How Prohibition Shaped the Culture of a Generation - Episode 61
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Kara is back in the third installment of her ongoing Prohibition series. In this episode Kara paints a picture of how American culture was changed and adapted to the new restrictions of alcohol being band. Many people conformed to the amendment, but others saw a golden opportunity to make a grip of money as well as "sticking it to the man"
You'll get to see what "speakeasies" were all about, how they worked, and many of the colorful figures who mixed good business sense with super shady dealing that would eventually s...
Prohibition (Pt. 2): Congress Cracks Down on Alcohol - Episode 60
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In this episode, Kara expands on Prohibition and how it started to affect society and all the different ways people tried to skirt around the 18th Amendment. She dives into how the Federal government tried to crack down on the sale and consumption of alcohol to how people would figure out loopholes and straight up brazen methods of procuring, producing, and transferring alcohol into America.
What was supposed to be movement that entailed women's rights and voting to making a society of men who could be trusted and be reliable, instead t...
Prohibition (Pt. 1): America's Love/Hate Relationship with Alcohol - Episode 59
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In this episode, Kara dives into the beginnings of one of the greatest dumpster fires in American history. What started off as a noble movement to make men better men and to eliminate a societal toxin, turned into a decade of insanity, crime, and abject poverty for many.
We all know about Prohibition from the textbooks, but did you know that the movement started since before the Civil War? Did you know that the movement started because women didn't think men were bad, but alcohol turned them into something else in...
Disasters of the Dead: How to Explode a Royal Corpse and Blow up an 80-Ton Whale - Episode 58
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After a bit of a break, Kara and Ed are back on the mic with a real "banger" of an episode so to speak. Our hosts are trying something different where they both put in their own contributions to the idea of how things go bad even after death.
Kara's going to start of with King William the Conqueror's rise to fame and subsequent death and the issues that can arise when you don't bury a portly man in a quick enough time. Let's just say it involves a burning village in...
1904 Olympics: Cheating, Chasing Dogs, and Doping With Strychnine - Episode 56
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In 1904, the city of St. Louis won the bid to house one of the new Olympic games. In this episode, Kara is diving into the wild and whacky events that took place in these games including women racing to win a pound of tea and marathon runners being denied water and only give alcohol and one dude even being poisoned with strychnine.
The 1904 Olympics was one for the history books before you know it, everything will fly off the rails. So sit back and relax with a sports drink of your c...
Movie Busts: How Waterworld Became the Most Expensive Disaster in Hollywood History - Episode 55
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In this episode, Ed is going back to his childhood from the 90's to talk about one of his favorite movies: Kevin Reynolds' and Kevin Costner's epic fill Waterworld.
Waterworld came out in 1995 and was touted as the most expensive movie ever made in human history. With an eye watering price tag of $175 million, the many creators of the movie as well as the executives who fronted the bill tried to make a cookie cutter no-fail format that can only result in huge success. Can you see where this train of...
The Hindenburg Disaster: How to Burn up a Blimp Without a Match! - Episode 57
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Ed and Kara are back this week with a beast of an episode for you. It's been a long time coming, but Ed has finally dug into one of the worst air disasters of the 20th century, the Hindenburg fire!
The Hindenburg was the largest dirigible? Blimp? Zeppelin? floaty thingy the world had ever seen. This thing was designed from the ground up to be comfortable, fast, and most importantly SAFE. Even though the thing was filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas, the Germans really did think of everything and we d...
The Donner Party (Pt. 3): Desperate Times Call for Desperate Food! - Episode 54
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Today is the day that you get to hear the thrilling end to one of the craziest and depressing moments in American history up to the 1850: The tragedy of the Donner Party. Check out Episode 52 and Episode 53 for the background that feeds into this conclusion. Be sure to give those a listen on thedaysdumpsterfire.com to get caught up.
Where Kara left off, the Donner party had already been trying to survive in the wild during a winter and as food ran out, desperation forced the living to consider the dead a...
The Donner Party (Pt. 2): The Scouting Party that Only Found Death - Episode 53
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Check it out! Kara, Deja, and Ed got the second part of Donner, Party of 90! published for the world to listen to. In this episode, Kara continues the discussion into the famous (and very... taboo) Donner Party where 90 men, women, and children ventured out west in 1846 to make a new life in California. However, after being informed about a supposed "short cut" the party got stuck in winter weather west of what we know to be Reno, Nevada. With no hope of discovery let alone rescue, the Donner party hunkers down to ride...
The Donner Party (Pt. 1): Bad Directions, Glamourous Wagons, and the Worst BBQ Ever - Episode 52
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Have you ever tried taking a shortcut or was given the directions involving a shortcut, only to find out that it tripled the amount of time it would have taken if you just stuck to the normal path? Human beings LOVE shortcuts, but most of the time a shortcut is a recipe for disaster. However, the worst shortcuts result in humans having to eat other humans to stay alive due to all the delays that "shortcut" provided.
In this episode, Kara introduces the first part of a two part series about t...
The Panama Canal: 22,000 Lives, Lost Millions, and the Ultimate French Failure - Episode 51
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Have you ever been lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to take on a project from a coworker or fellow student who single handedly ran the entire thing into the ground? Did this person do such a terrible job that it cost them their job? Moreover, when you started to clean up the project from this person you quickly asked yourself, "what in the actual @#^! happened here?”
If this has ever happened to you, then you would have a pretty good understanding of what the American engineers experienced when they took over the...
50 Episodes of Failure: The Milestones and Mistakes That Changed Our Lives - Episode 50
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Nobody thought it possible that Ed could edit 50 episode of The Day's Dumpster Fire... especially Ed. But here it is in all it's glory. More importantly Deja is back so Kara needs to mediate and work overtime in keeping them in check because they tend to let things fly off the rails.
In this episode the crew looks back on 50 episodes of a show they had no idea would actually work. Kara, Deja, and Ed reflect on the episodes that had the greatest impact on them as well as those episodes t...
A Holocaust Survivor's Story: Charlotte's Fight to Outsmart the Third Reich... as a Little Girl! - Episode 49
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Hey there!
We got a very different episode for you. We'd even prefer not to call it an episode, but rather an interview with a remarkable woman: Charlotte Adelman.
In conjunction with the Arizona Jewish Historical Society, link to their website can be found here, Kara and Ed were able to take their students to the society's building which tells the stories of those who experienced the worst human atrocity in human history... and we pray that the world never sees one of these again, the Nazi devised plan t...
The Vietnam War (Pt. 2): Riots, Rockets, and a Nation on the Edge - Episode 42
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In this episode, Kara follows up on her exploration into the dumpster fire that is the Vietnam War. She left off in the Vietnam War Part I right at the height of 1969. So if you haven't checked out that episode, it is strongly recommended that you do so now. However, if you feel confident in your knowledge of Vietnam, then you can proceed.
Kara moves on from what started the Vietnam War in American history to why the issue created so much conflict in an already conflicted America. There are race r...
