The Eastland Disaster of 1915

On the morning of July 24, 1915, thousands of Chicago factory workers and their families gathered for a company picnic aboard the SS Eastland. The ship never made it out of the harbor. Just moments after passengers boarded, it rolled onto its side in only twenty feet of water—within sight of the dock. More than 844 people died, making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters in American history. Tragically, the catastrophe may have been made worse by safety regulations enacted after the Titanic disaster, as additional lifeboats increased the already unstable ship's top-heavy design. Engineers had warned for years that the Eastland was dangerously unstable, but those warnings went largely ignored. In this episode of History Shorts, we uncover the forgotten story of the Eastland disaster, the engineering failures that led to it, and why one of America's greatest tragedies has largely faded from public memory.   SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.patreon.com/c/HistoryShortsPodcast ADVERTISE: https://www.historyshortspodcast.com/advertise   LEARN MORE: https://www.historyshortspodcast.com/ SPONSORED BY: https://www.podcastrepublic.net/get-it-now