Hillsborough?
Aberfan?
Lockerbie?
Dunblane?
Herald Of Free Enterprise?
Grenfell?
Kings Cross?
Piper Alpha?
| by Anonymous | reply 62 | January 24, 2024 6:12 AM |
I'm British and haven't heard of the last one
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | January 23, 2024 8:50 PM |
I know of Lockerbie, and that's it.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | January 23, 2024 8:50 PM |
Aberfane was covered in an episode of the Crown. Grenfell just happened a few years ago, so it's still everywhere...
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | January 23, 2024 8:52 PM |
Yes. No. Yes. No. No. Yes. Yes. No.
(Sample size: 1)
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | January 23, 2024 8:52 PM |
Lockerbie is probably the only super-widely known one.
You'd think Hillsborough would be given the post-tragedy litigation has gone on for so long.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | January 23, 2024 8:55 PM |
Yes to the first four. American
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | January 23, 2024 8:56 PM |
Andy Murray was nearly a victim of the Dunblane massacre. He was in the Primary Four class, and hid under his desk while the gunman was attacking the Primary One class in the school gym. The gunman intended to arrive during the morning assembly, when the whole school would have been in the one place but got his times mixed up and arrived late when they had all gone to their separate classes. He had enough bullets to kill every child in the school, so but for that half hour delay sporting history would have been very different. Murray has spoken about it at various times over the years which brought more awareness of the tragedy to a global audience.
Handguns were banned in the UK following the massacre, so this remains the only notable UK school shooting I am aware of.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | January 23, 2024 9:00 PM |
Murray also knew the killer, Thomas Hamilton, and attended the boys' clubs he ran, people move over this tactfully but the clubs are widely believed to have been a way for Hamilton to perve on young boys.
DM link in next post, sorry it's the DM.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | January 23, 2024 9:02 PM |
[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 10 | January 23, 2024 9:02 PM |
My answers (guesses) without looking them up. I live in Texas
Hillsborough? Nope
Aberfan? Mine collapse?
Lockerbie? Pan Am flight bombed
Dunblane? Nope
Herald Of Free Enterprise? Ferry disaster?
Grenfell? Terrible residential tower fire. Flammable exterior cladding.
Kings Cross? Subway bombing?
Piper Alpha? North Sea drilling fire, yes?
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | January 23, 2024 9:10 PM |
Lockerbie is the only one I know of, at least by those names (I might know something of the actual events, but I'm too lazy to google them all)
(50 yo American, grad level education)
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | January 23, 2024 9:14 PM |
Hillsborough? Nope
Aberfan? Nope
Lockerbie? Yes
Dunblane? Yes
Herald Of Free Enterprise? Yes
Grenfell? Nope
Kings Cross? Yes
Piper Alpha? Maybe - was that an offshore oil drilling platform?
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | January 23, 2024 9:15 PM |
The British consider a school shooting a disaster?
How quaint.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | January 23, 2024 9:16 PM |
I remember our Lorraine Kelly in tears interviewing families in Dunblane
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | January 23, 2024 9:21 PM |
I'd call 'Herald of Free Enterprise' 'Zeebrugge' and have vivid memories of it as a schoolfriend's parents died in it. Also British and had to look up Piper Alpha.
If it weren't for The Crown I'd know nothing of Aberfan. Even then I struggled to believe it, like surely either the head of the school or the head of the coal mine would have thought twice about putting a school there?
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | January 23, 2024 9:21 PM |
Yes to everything but the Herald and the last one. American anglophile.
I believe Dunblane is why there are strict gun laws in the U.K.?
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | January 23, 2024 9:22 PM |
Hmmm, quite surprising that two people know about the Herald of Free Enterprise and Piper Alpha but not about Hillsborough. Hillsborough had a massive cultural and political impact on the UK, I'd say it's the second most significant disaster on the list, (arguably) behind Lockerbie but just ahead of Dunblane. The Sun newspaper still sells next to no copies on Merseyside more than 30 years later because of the lies it printed blaming the fans for the disaster, it became a symbol of the contempt that government, police and the 'establishment' held working-class football fans in during the Thatcher era.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | January 23, 2024 9:22 PM |
Aberfan is fairly well known because of The Crown's episode about it. (for those who don't know, in the mid 1960s an enormous pile of coal on top of a hill above the Welsh mining town of Aberfan collapsed and started a huge avalanche that killed dozens of children and their teachers at a middle school below--it took the Queen days longer than it should have to visit the town to comfort the survivors, and she later said it was the greatest regret of her career she did not visit sooner.)
Lockerbie is well known because most of the dead were American college students on the plane.
Grenfell made huge international news not so long ago.
The others not so much, because the US has had its own school massacres (some even worse than Dunblane) and its own stampedes.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | January 23, 2024 9:23 PM |
And its own disastrous fires, too.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | January 23, 2024 9:23 PM |
A lot of Americans were affected by Lockerbie. Hillsborough was very shocking and made a lot of news when it happened. But I doubt that many who were not old enough to remember could tell you what it was about.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | January 23, 2024 9:24 PM |
I remember some of these events, but don’t recognize OP’s shorthand references.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | January 23, 2024 9:24 PM |
Aberfan was the spoil tip from the mine, not the actual coal itself. It was started 8 years before it collapsed so the school was there long before it. Heavy rain plus the fact it was piled on top of spring wells saturated the spoils which turned to slurry and spewed downhill, killing 144 as it submerged the school.
The Queen didn't visit for fear of derailing ongoing rescue missions but, as stated above, came to regret this greatly over the years as, being a mother herself, saw how much pain the village was left in.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | January 23, 2024 9:29 PM |
[quote]No marchioness, OP?
The Marchioness is in my consciousness but I didn't realise it was just a few months after Hillsborough with 51 deaths. I know Lawrence Dallaglio's sister was one of the victims. And I didn't know a TV drama had been made but never aired.
Hillsborough, Herald Of Free Enterprise/Zeebrugge and Dunblane all had charity singles recorded about/for them.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | January 23, 2024 9:41 PM |
I remember being horrified by the Hillsborough event, but didn't remember it by that name. The US recently had a similar crowd crush disaster in Houston in 2021 that led to a ban on festival seating. Not nearly as many deaths (10) as a Hillsborough.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | January 23, 2024 9:42 PM |
I first heard of Aberfan from those Time-Life books on unexplained phenomena in the 80s. The ad shows a woman sit up in bed and she claimed to have a vision of children trapped under a moving mountain. Then Aberfan happened.
Memorable as the woman in the ad was Julianne Moore.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | January 23, 2024 9:47 PM |
[quote]I believe Dunblane is why there are strict gun laws in the U.K.?
It did, yes. It followed the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. The British Olympic team raised the issue that the gun laws were so strict the shooting team would have to be based overseas.
Since Dunblane in 1995 there have been 2 mass shootings in the UK. There was the Cumbria shooting in 2010 and then the incel Portsmouth man a few years ago. Both killed relatives and then random people with rifles and shotguns.
With Dunblane I remember reading that he stood over some of the children and shot them in the head to make sure they were dead. He stood over the bodies of 5 year old children and shot them in the head.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | January 23, 2024 9:56 PM |
And what about the high profile murders.
James Bulger, Rachel Nickell, Stephen Lawrence, Holly & Jessica, Damilola Taylor, Baby P/Peter Connolly, Fred & Rose West, Harold Shipman, the Ipswich prostitutes, Sarah Everard,
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | January 23, 2024 10:11 PM |
No to all of these:
Herald Of Free Enterprise?
Kings Cross?
Piper Alpha?
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | January 23, 2024 10:14 PM |
Kings Cross was a huge fire at the station which killed 31 people, caused by a discarded cigarette under an escalator in the 1987
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | January 23, 2024 10:22 PM |
Excuse me, but I have my own problems
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | January 23, 2024 10:25 PM |
I used to take those escalators at King's X all the time. Was creepy. I can't believe they used to be made of wood and people smoked on them!
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | January 23, 2024 10:27 PM |
I know Hillsborough and Lockerbie. ESPN did a fantastic documentary on Hillsborough.
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | January 23, 2024 10:29 PM |
I'm going to be 100% honest and say that I am British and only have heard of Hillsborough (I was 6-yrs-old then), Lockerbie (5-yrs-old then, very vague on details), Dunblane (13-yrs-old then) and Grenfell (which is the only incident on the list that happened when I was an adult).
| by Anonymous | reply 37 | January 23, 2024 10:31 PM |
Lockerbie involved an American plane filled with Americans, which was targeted as retribution for American policy in the Middle East. So though the plane took off in London and blew up over Scotland, it wasn't strictly a British disaster.
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | January 23, 2024 10:32 PM |
Did they destroy the video of people being crushed like they destroyed the audio recording of the Moors Murderers?
| by Anonymous | reply 39 | January 23, 2024 10:32 PM |
[quote]James Bulger, Rachel Nickell, Stephen Lawrence, Holly & Jessica, Damilola Taylor, Baby P/Peter Connolly, Fred & Rose West, Harold Shipman, the Ipswich prostitutes, Sarah Everard,
James Bulger yes, because it was so shocking it made international headlines. Harold Shipman only to some degree, because he was thought to be the most prolific serial killer in the world at the time. The others did not make it over, although I myself do know who Fred and Rose West are.
The USA has had so many serial killers and sensationalized murder cases here that the ones in the UK just get crowded out of our news unless they involve small adorable children (like the murder of James Bulger and the disappearance of Madeline McCann)..
| by Anonymous | reply 40 | January 23, 2024 10:34 PM |
I was reading about the Storegga Slide the other day that killed 12,000 around 8,000 years ago in Scotland, Northern England.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 41 | January 23, 2024 10:39 PM |
Aberfan and Lockerbie, the former I only learned of on Datalounge.
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | January 23, 2024 10:41 PM |
Oh yes, and Grenfell. I was on DL when that thread started! There was lots of wild speculation, naturally.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | January 23, 2024 10:43 PM |
Lockerbie led to years of negotiations on the rules and venue for a potential trial for the two accused Libyans, including Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi who was eventually convicted (although it may have been a massive miscarriage of justice, certainly some of the families think he didn't do it). Eventually Col. Gaddafi agreed to extradition to end his country's international isolation which had been going on for twenty years at that point.
The trial was held in a school on a former US airforce base in the Netherlands, under the authority and control of the specially convened Scottish court and under Scottish law, amusingly making it the first Scots colony since the ill-fated Darien Affair of the 1690s.
Some people were also killed on the ground in Lockerbie, so it wasn't just Americans who were victims.
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | January 23, 2024 10:43 PM |
R30 Lucy Letby should be added to the list - one of the worst female serial killers and serial killers of children in modern UK history. But she is so normal and basic (the 'Vanilla Killer' was something the tabloids tried to start, but failed) that no-one can quite work out why she did it, and there are some question marks hanging over that conviction IMO.
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | January 23, 2024 10:44 PM |
[QUOTE]I'd call 'Herald of Free Enterprise' 'Zeebrugge'
I know this disaster by the Zeebrugge name. The newscasts always used it in their graphics.
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | January 24, 2024 12:16 AM |
R19/CE - I'm surprised you didn't mention Kelvin MacKenzie. Odious, odious man.
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | January 24, 2024 12:34 AM |
A YouTube channel did a REALLY good summary on Lockerbie...that's how I found out about that one.
Absolutely horrifying.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 48 | January 24, 2024 12:59 AM |
I dated a guy who was supposed on Pan Am 103. He'd done a semester abroad with a group of students from Claremont Colleges. He decided at the last moment to stay for a Pogues concert and woke up the following morning to find that everyone he knew was dead. Imagine waking up and all of the friends you had for the last four months are gone forever. He managed to graduate, but spent more than a decade drinking heavily, moving from shitty job to shitty job across the U.S. He finally did get sober and healthy. He's a therapist
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | January 24, 2024 1:25 AM |
Wow R49. Is that a true story?
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | January 24, 2024 1:51 AM |
This is an interesting book written by the brother of one of the Pan Am 103 victims...
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 51 | January 24, 2024 2:00 AM |
Thanks R51. It's $4.99 on kindle, I just bought it.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | January 24, 2024 2:08 AM |
I know the first 7 of 8, not that I could give a very good account of more than 3 or 4.
(American, but lots of time in the UK)
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | January 24, 2024 2:09 AM |
Yes most of them OP - depending on how educated and interested in world affairs the person is.
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | January 24, 2024 2:12 AM |
Hillsborough was covered at the time. It was revisited in some British TV show I watched, though I couldn't tell you which.
Lockerbie was infamous and kept coming up in the news. Unforgettable.
The fire at King's Cross was covered at the time. I didn't recognize it just from looking at your list, though.
| by Anonymous | reply 56 | January 24, 2024 2:23 AM |
It's the story he told me, r50. We dated in the late '90s for about 6 months. He was a good person, a gentle, sensitive type, certainly not the sad case he described himself as when drinking. And definitely not a drama queen. He had a stable career as a paralegal in a big Chicago law firm by then. I don't remember how the topic came up. We were out for dinner when he talked about it. We haven't kept in touch, but I occasionally Google names from the past and that's how I found out about his career change (which makes total sense).
I just checked the Pan Am 103 Wiki page and the time coincides with Gaddafi handing over the suspected bombers in 1999. That was probably what triggered the conversation.
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | January 24, 2024 2:24 AM |
Lockerbie might be the crash from which we learned that on-the-ground witnesses suffered PTSD.
| by Anonymous | reply 58 | January 24, 2024 2:30 AM |
If youre old enough you know about Lockerbie
| by Anonymous | reply 59 | January 24, 2024 2:31 AM |
Kim Cattrall was booked on Pan Am 103, but switched to the next flight.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 60 | January 24, 2024 2:40 AM |
Why do you ask? Sorry, OP, but we can't spare the time to entertain you; we Americans have a democracy we're trying to save.
Grow a spine, people. How will you standup against Orange Hitler if you let a sniveling, patronizing piece of shit like OP question and try to best you?
| by Anonymous | reply 61 | January 24, 2024 2:59 AM |
I apologize for America's biggest non-sequitur drunk ever since Trump himself at r61.
| by Anonymous | reply 62 | January 24, 2024 6:12 AM |
