Disasters of the Century

The 1974 Super Outbreak was the second-largest tornado outbreak on record for a single 24-hour period, just behind the 2011 Super Outbreak. It was also the most violent tornado outbreak ever recorded, with 30 F4/F5 tornadoes confirmed. From April 3 to April 4, 1974, there were 148 tornadoes confirmed in 13 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario.

This tsunami struck Hilo Bay in a succession of seven waves for a duration of 15 minutes. The downtown area of Hilo was torn apart and flooded by the massive wave. However, the brunt of the tsunami was felt by a bay front residential community called Shinmachi, or "new town." The entire district was washed away except for a Coca-Cola bottling plant.

In July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. An electrical anomaly had caused the discharge of a Zuni rocket on the flight deck, triggering a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived with damage exceeding US$72 million.

The B-25 Empire State Building crash was a 1945 aircraft accident in which a B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted in thick fog over New York City, crashed into the Empire State Building. The accident did not compromise the building's structural integrity, but it did cause fourteen deaths (three crewmen and eleven people in the building) and damage estimated at $1,000,000 ($13,000,000 in 2015 dollars).

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers - 123 women and 23 men - who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged 16 to 23.

Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 was a regularly scheduled flight that crashed while attempting to land at Bradford Regional Airport in Bradford, Pennsylvania on December 24, 1968. Twenty of the 47 occupants on board were killed.

The 1953 North Sea flood was a major flood caused by a heavy storm that occurred on the night of Saturday, 31 January 1953 and morning of Sunday, 1 February 1953. The floods struck the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.

The 1935 Labour Day Hurricane was the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United States on record and the most intense Atlantic hurricane until Hurricane Gilbert.