Hurricane Mitch, which struck Central America (Honduras and Nicaragua) between 26 Oct – 4 Nov 1998, left approximately 2.5million people dependent on international aid efforts when it destroyed 93,690 dwellings. An estimated 1,120,000 people were rendered homeless when Typhoon Ike, packing winds of up to 137 mph struck the Philippines on September 2 1984 killing 1363 and injuring a further 300.
On 26 April 1942, 1,549 people were killed by a coal dust explosion at Honkeiko (Benxihu) Colliery, China.
The US Gemini 8 mission was flown by Neil Armstrong and David Scott (both USA) on 16–17 March 1968. It achieved the first docking in space, between Gemini 8 and an unmanned Agena booster. While docked, the combined spacecraft began an uncontrolled roll. After an emergency undocking, Gemini 8 began to roll faster, approaching one revolution per second, and the crew were dangerously close to g-forces that would have impaired their vision or caused them to black out. Armstrong was able to stop the roll
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In the greatest space disaster on the ground, 91 people were killed when an R-16 rocket exploded during fuelling at the Baikonur Space Centre, Kazakhastan on 24 Oct 1960.
A total of 500 people died in a monumental winter storm that was called by one meteorologist a storm with the heart of a blizzard and the soul of a hurricane. US$1.2 billion (£825.14 million) worth of damage was caused by a storm that traversed the entire east coast of the USA on March 12-13, 1993.
In a fire at The Theatre, Guangdong (Canton), China, in May 1845, a total of 1,670 people perished.
The Detroit Lions (USA) set a National Football League (NFL) mark for futility in games played as the visiting team, losing a league-record 26 consecutive road games between November 2007 and December 2010. The Lions broke their own ignominious franchise record; the team had lost 25 road games in a row between 2001 and 2003.
Some 1,400 people died in riots following the arrest of a woman for selling contraband cigarettes in Taiwan in March 1947.
The Seattle Seahawks (USA) became the first division champion in NFL history with a losing record. The Seahawks, despite a 7-9 record, finished in first place in the NFC West division in 2010, and qualified for the postseason as the worst playoff team in league history.
The pneumonic form of plague (bacterial infection), also known as the Black Death (1347-51), killed around a quarter of the population of Europe, and some 75 million worldwide. Estimates based on local archives suggest that between one-eighth and two-thirds of the affected population died of the disease. Contemporary French historian Jean Froissart (1333-1419) believed that about one-third of the population of Europe-some 25 million people-succumbed in the first epidemic, an estimate which is now widely accepted by scientists and historians. The disease still
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