#Halifax Explosion

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lime phoenix
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I’m sorry if this has been discussed and I just haven’t gotten to the story yet, but the Halifax explosion is a very interesting (tragic) story. Halifax is a harbour city on the east coast of Canada. In Dec 1917 two ships collided in the harbour, one of which was carrying explosive material and it was the largest man-made explosion at that point in time. Theres also lots of interesting details about people who saved lives in the disaster including a young man who sacrificed himself to send a message to a train headed straight for the city. Boston played a big part in the rescue efforts and as a thank you for their support in the aftermath Halifax now sends a huge Christmas tree to Boston every year. I’m not sure if this fits any of the categories of content you guys normally cover but there are so many interesting aspects of this story that it can be analyzed in many ways, perhaps allowing for an angle that would fit with the other YouTube content. I also am close enough that I can provide plenty of information and artefacts that remain in Halifax to this day including an anchor in our downtown area that was thrown from the water and landed 4km away (from one of the ships involved in the incident) and remains there today. Happy to explain better and/or provide references if there is interest but a good place to start is the Wikipedia page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

Halifax Explosion

On the morning of 6 December 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Mont-Blanc, laden with high explosives, caught fire and exploded, devastating the Richmond district of Halifax. At least 1,782 people were killed, largely in Halifax and Dartmouth, ...

placid heron
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I live here! Yes it levelled so much of the city, there’s a large portion where we have nothing older than 1917 as it was completely obliterated. There’s clocks in our museums that stopped at the exact time of detonation but somehow were otherwise preserved. Very neat to go see

lime phoenix
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Well howdy neighbour! That’s pretty cool I didn’t expect any other ‘scotians to be around. But yeah thank you for adding that info! I wanted to make a better pitch for it cause there are so many aspects that I think fall into the dark and morbid yet fascinating style of storytelling but I have the flu and I think my brain is broken so I can’t seem to speak very eloquently, lol! 😝 but basically if I recall correctly people were heading to the basin to see what was going on just sort of out of casual curiosity and then anyone and anything within nearly 3 square kms was instantly taken out. The Wikipedia page actually has a lot of good information and links to other sources. But I agree that seeing the museum’s display on the event is very trippy. It’s hard to really imagine something like this happening obviously but there are some haunting stories and unbelievable artefacts. Just read the wiki again where it says that allegedly crew from the ship(s) were trying to warn onlookers to get away because the ship was about to blow but there was so much noise and confusion no one heard the warnings. At the very least if anyone would like to read about it it’s a pretty fascinating (and tragic) tale. There are even some local ghost stories that were spawned by the events. Supposedly a church downtown keeps replacing a window because of the silhouette of a priest who was standing in that spot when the explosion occurred (he died and the window was shattered) but every time they replace the window the silhouette becomes visible in the brand new glass. I have no idea where I heard that though. May have been the “harbour hopper” which might be an even darker and more disturbing part of this city than any ghost… (sorry that joke is not going to be very funny to anyone who hasn’t heard of the harbour hopper and been bombarded with tourists chanting “ribbit ribbit” 🐸through the busy downtown streets every summer 😬 but the explosion story is a pretty interesting one @placid heron

placid heron
lime phoenix
# placid heron I heard that St Paul’s church had the silhouette because the priest was blown ap...

Holy crap are you serious????? I had no idea about the Oppenheimer thing that’s wild. I feel so removed from the rest of the world living here that when something is relevant to the rest of the world it’s a bit of a mind blown moment. That’s wild. Also I feel vindicated that you know about the window thing too! I didn’t imagine it 😝 but it does creep me out and I ALWAYS check when I drive or walk by to see if they’ve replaced the window and suddenly it’ll be gone. So far it seems like it’s sticking around. Spooky to think about that 🫨

placid heron
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I learned about the church on a ghost tour I took years ago, there’s also a house on Robie street with a black window that was apparently caused by a guy who owned it who sold his soul to a demon and that window turned black when the demon walked through to take it

lime phoenix
placid heron
lime phoenix
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I mean I don’t think I know as much about stuff region-specific like you do! I guess I’ve never looked into it too deeply maybe out of fear 😝