That’s Terrible!

On November 9, 1975, a bulk freighter called the Edmund Fitzgerald began its final voyage of the season, hauling iron ore across Lake Superior. But the next day, November 10, a storm struck, and the ship and its crew of 29 were lost.

In this episode, Erika and Amelia talk with Corey Adkins from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society in Whitefish Point, Michigan.

You can learn more about the Edmund Fitzgerald on the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum's website or check out the resources below.

The Last Voyage: Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald. This is a great documentary from local TV station 9&10 News.

Book: The Legend Lives On by Bruce Lynn and Chris Winters

Book: The Edmund Fitzgerald: Song of the Bellby Kathi-Jo Wargin

Listen to Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot's song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" here.

Check out our website for exclusive stories, photos and book recommendations!

On October 30, 1938, the radio show The Mercury Theater on the Air had a special episode planned: a scary play for Halloween. The War of the Worlds was the story of Martians landing in New Jersey and attacking New York City. And the acting was so good that people actually believed the attack was real!

On today's episode, Erika and Amelia talk with Gail Jarrow, author of SPOOKED!: How a Radio Broadcast and The War of the Worlds Sparked the 1938 Invasion of America. Listen and learn about the terrible night aliens landed on Earth.

Do you think you'd believe such a story if you heard it? Listen to the broadcast for yourself! And if you happen to be near Grover's Mill, New Jersey, you can see exactly where the Martians landedin the story.

Check out more of Gail Jarrow's books about terrible things:

American Murderer: The Parasite That Haunted the South

Blood and Germs: The Civil War Battle Against Wounds and Disease

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! That's Terrible! is now on Substack. Subscribe today for blog posts about all of our episodes including photos and more! Just look for @terriblepod or click the link above.

Now, on with the show!

It's spooky season, and we didn't have to look hard to find the perfect story. This week, Erika and Amelia talk with Dan Lipcan from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts about Salem's most famous event: the witch trials of 1692.

Check out these books if you want to learn more:

History Smashers! Salem Witch Trials by Kate Messner

It Happened in Salem by Jonah Winter

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Salem Witch!by Jim Pipe

Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry

The Tall Man from Bostonby Marion L. Starkey

That's Terrible! is going international this week! Erika and Amelia talk with Paul O'Sullivan from Blarney Castle and Gardens in Cork, Ireland. It's a place with some spooky features, like a poison garden and a witch that roams the grounds at night (don't worry, she's trapped during the day). It's also the site of the Blarney Stone, which sits on top of the main tower at the castle. Legend has it, if you kiss the stone, you receive the gift of gab.

Paul recommends this book: Gran Kissed the Blarney Stone by Luann Atkin Koester.

The Great Molasses Flood occurred on January 15, 1919 when a storage tank failed at the Purity Distilling Company in Boston's North End. Millions of gallons of hot molasses went pouring into the streets, then cooled down and thickened, creating a sticky mess. The wave swept up people and animals and destroyed buildings, and the cooled, thick molasses took so long to clean up that for decades afterward, people said they could smell it on a hot day.

This week, Amelia and Erika are joined by Steve Gurriero, director of education from the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation in Waltham, Massachusetts.

If you want to try Boston brown bread, we used this recipe.

Read more:

I Survived the Great Molasses Flood by Lauren Tarshis. There's a graphic novel too!

Leah Braves the Flood: A Great Molasses Flood Survival Story by Julie Gilbert

Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo. This one is more for the adults!

This episode is chock full of book recommendations, so scroll all the way through the show notes for links!

Amelia and Erika (and a surprise third cohost, some girl named Nora) are joined by New York Times bestselling author Alan Gratz, whose stories put fictional kids in the middle of terrible true events. He talks about how he chooses his terrible topics, his favorite themes to write about and why kids love learning about war and disasters.

Be sure to check out Alan's new novella, Flight, available for preorder now.

Some of our favorite Alan Gratz historical fiction:

Two Degrees. A story about climate change and Nora's favorite

Projekt 1065: A Novel of World War II. (This one has spy stuff!)

War Games: A Novel of 1936 Berlin

Heroes. Did you know there were kids at Pearl Harbor? We didn't.

Ground Zero: A Novel of 9/11. Another of Nora's favorites

Some of Alan's favorite books!

Save the People! by Stacy McAnulty

History Smashers series by Kate Messner

The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf

Junius Leak and the Spiraling Vortex of Doom by Allan Wolf

The Vanishing of Lake Peigneur: A Graphic Novel Based on a True Story by Allan Wolf

If you want to learn more about the Little League Baseball World Series, visit our favorite bookstore in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for a local perspective!

Questions? Ideas for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

The morning of April 18, 1906 brought a rude awakening for residents of San Francisco, California. At 5:12 a.m., a massive earthquake struck, breaking gas lines and starting fires that burned throughout the city for days. On today's show, Erika and Amelia talk with Jack Grippi, a retired geologist who now conducts walking tours for the San Francisco Historical Society. He talks about the science behind earthquakes and tells the story of a young girl who survived.

Learn more about earthquakes here!

See photos of Lily Sung and read more of her story here!

Read more about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake:

I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake by Lauren Tarshis

Lily and the Great Quake: A San Francisco Earthquake Survival Story by Veeda Bybee

Questions? Ideas for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

If you haven't listened to Part 1, we highly recommend you do before listening to this one.

The Radium Girls were factory workers who painted clock dials at the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey and the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois. They were well paid, and the job was fun. The paint made things glow in the dark, and the girls often used it on themselves as well, painting their dress buttons, their nails and even their teeth. Everyone in town knew who the girls were. But soon, the whole world would hear about them.

What the girls didn't know was that the paint they were using, and the way they were told to use it, was very dangerous. Some got very sick. Their employers refused to help them, so the Radium Girls had to stand up for themselves.

In the last episode, Erika and Amelia talked with Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, about the dangers of radium and how the factory workers were instructed to handle it. This week, we talk about what happened after the women got sick and how they're remembered today.

If you want to read more about the Radium Girls, we recommend:

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore. This is an excellent book but definitely for the adults! Younger readers should check out the edition of Moore's book made just for them called The Radium Girls: The Scary but True Story of the Poison that Made People Glow in the Dark.

The Story of Marie Curie by Susan B. Katz and Who Was Marie Curie? by Megan Stine tell the story of the woman who discovered radium.

If you want to see a sneak peek of a production of the play that inspired Kate to write her book, you can find one on YouTube from 2024 done by Columbus State University.

Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

This topic was so big, we had to split it into two episodes. Trust us: It's worth it!

The Radium Girls were factory workers who painted clock dials at the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey and the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois. They were well paid, and the job was fun. The paint made things glow in the dark, and the girls often used it on themselves as well, painting their dress buttons, their nails and even their teeth. Everyone in town knew who the girls were. But soon, the whole world would hear about them.

What the girls didn't know was that the paint they were using, and the way they were told to use it, was very dangerous. Some got very sick. Their employers refused to help them, so the Radium Girls had to stand up for themselves.

In this episode, Erika and Amelia talk with Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. She tells us about the dangers of radium and the women who worked at the factories. In the next episode, we'll hear about how the Radium Girls fought back against the companies responsible for making them sick.

If you want to read more about the Radium Girls, we recommend:

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore. This is an excellent book but definitely for the adults! Younger readers should check out the edition of Moore's book made just for them called The Radium Girls: The Scary but True Story of the Poison that Made People Glow in the Dark.

The Story of Marie Curie by Susan B. Katz and Who Was Marie Curie? by Megan Stine tell the story of the woman who discovered radium.

Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from New York's LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, but it wouldn't get far. A few minutes after takeoff, the plane hit a flock of Canada geese, losing both engines. Captain Chesley Sullenberger III called LaGuardia and asked to come back, but he quickly realized he wouldn't have time and made the decision to land the plane in the middle of the Hudson River. Because of his quick thinking, all 155 on board survived. People called it the "Miracle on the Hudson."

This week, Erika and Amelia talk with Dave Sanderson, the last passenger off the flight. He tells the story about what happened from his perspective and whether it's changed the way he feels about flying.

Read Dave's story and more in this book:

Brace for Impact: Miracle on the Hudson Survivors Share Their Stories of Near Death and Hope for New Life

You can also read about Maverick Foletta, an eight year old who is learning to fly!

Questions? Ideas for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

July 24, 1915 should have been a wonderful day for the employees of Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works and their families. The company had chartered five passenger steamers to carry around 7,000 people from Chicago to Michigan City, Indiana for a picnic. But one of those ships, the Eastland, capsized before it even left the docks on the Chicago River. In this episode, Ted and Barb Wachholz from the Eastland Disaster Historical Society join Erika and Amelia to tell the story of the disaster and its survivors.

Stories from the episode:

Marion Eichholz

Borghild "Bobbie" Aanstadhttps://eastlanddisaster.org/eastland_people/aanstad-borghild-amelia

Clara Schuster Read more about the Eastland Disaster: Scritch Scratch Capsized! The Forgotten Story of the SS Eastland Disaster Sylvia's Story: The Chicago River Tragedy of the SS Eastland If you want to replicate Ted Wachholz's "Ultimate Whitey's Experience" (which we officially do NOT recommend...but let us know if you do it), you can visit Whitey's Ice Cream in the Quad Cities. If you want to play it a little safer, visit Maddy's Ice Cream and More in Gardner, Massachusetts and enjoy a sweet treat this summer! Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

This week, Erika and Amelia are joined by Dimitry Pompée, one of the hosts of the Eurovangelists podcast, to discuss something that is NOT terrible but is affected by terrible things: The Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision is a contest that brings together the nations of Europe (plus a few others) with one great song from each country, each year. It began as a way to unite Europe in the aftermath of World War II, but many events have affected the contest in big ways, some of those being quite terrible indeed.

There might have been a few terrible songs along the way too, but that's bound to happen over 70 years.

If you'd like to hear some songs from Eurovision, our friends at Eurovangelists helped us make a playlist for this episode. You can find it on Spotify as That's Terrible's NOT Terrible Eurovision Playlist. So give that wolf a banana, and enjoy the music!

If you'd like to tell us what you think of this or any episode, you can send us an email at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens experienced the most devastating volcanic eruption the United States had ever seen. Now, on the anniversary, Erika and Amelia are talking with a park ranger who spends every day at the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center in Washington telling people about everything the mountain has to offer. Alysa Adams talks about life before, during and after the eruption, and what it's like to grow up in the shadow of a volcano.

One quick correction though, because nobody's perfect: Harmony Falls was 100 feet tall, not 1,000.

Books:

Gopher to the Rescue! A volcano recovery story.

I Survived the Eruption of Mount Saint Helens

VOLCANO: The Eruption and Healing of Mount Saint Helens

Check out these educational videos (with dancing!)

Motion of the Mountain - Part 1

Motion of the Mountain - Part 2

Motion of the Mountain - Part 3

Additional educational videos:

Earthquake Shake!

Have a blast at our Mt. St. Helens Visitor Center!

Ashcam Webcam: USGS Volcano Hazards Program

Mount St Helens Visitor Center | Washington State Parks

Mount St. Helens Institute | Mount St. Helens Institute

GeoGirls - Mount St. Helens Science Camp | Mount St. Helens Institute

Resources for adults:

Search | U.S. Geological Survey

Mount St. Helens

Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

The Great Chicago Fire occurred over three days in October 1871 and destroyed more than three square miles of the city. It began in a barn belonging to Catherine and Patrick O'Leary, but what sparked the fire and who was responsible remains a mystery to this day.

The most popular theory is that a cow kicked a lantern over (probably because there's actually a song about it) but the real culprit could be as human as you and me.

In this episode, Erika and Amelia talk to Ann Keating, a history professor in Naperville, Illinois about the fire and how it changed Chicago.

If you want to learn more about the fire, check out these books:

The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O'Leary's Cow by Richard Bales

I Survived the Great Chicago Fire by Lauren Tarshis. There's also a graphic novel version.

We learned after recording this episode that Aly's Monkey Movement has ended their operations, but there's a new group taking up its cause. The Brookie Foundationis a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children with neurodivergence and medical needs. Their core work is to provide resources and items for these children, but through their initiative called Brookie's Bears, they're able to provide stuffed animals that bring comfort to those who need it most.

Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

Welcome to Centralia, Pennsylvania, a town with just a few residents and a wild history. Long ago, it was a bustling coal mining town, but everything changed in 1962 when a fire broke out underground. That fire still burns today and will probably continue for 250 years.

Erika and Amelia are joined this week by David DeKok, author of Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire. He shares his theory about how the fire started and what it's like to visit Centralia today.

Find more kid-friendly Centralia history here.

And don't forget to check out the Fish Doorbell and assist the lock keeper of Utrecht in The Netherlands in helping the fish move through the lock.

Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.

Get ready for an adventure into one of history’s greatest mysteries! In this episode, hosts Amelia and Erika take to the skies to explore the incredible life—and puzzling disappearance—of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. Who was she? What made her such a fearless trailblazer? And what might have happened on her final flight?

Joining the show is special guest Sterling Falk from the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison, Kansas, who shares fascinating facts, behind-the-scenes stories, and kid-friendly insights about Earhart’s legacy.

Packed with curiosity, history, and a dash of mystery, this episode invites young listeners to think like explorers, ask big questions, and imagine what it takes to chase your dreams—even when the journey gets tough.

Special thanks this week to the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum. Also worth visiting in Atchison: the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, where Amelia herself once lived and the Atchison Area Visitor and Information Center, where we learned the town's rich history outside of aviation.

If you want to read more about Amelia Earhart, here are some books we think you'll enjoy:

The Amelia Six by Kristin L. Gray

Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History (young readers edition)by Heith O'Brien

Who Was Amelia Earhart?by Kate Boehm Jerome

20 Hours, 40 Minutes, Our Flight in the Friendship by Amelia Earhart

Questions? Idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at thepodcastgrotto@gmail.com.