The Halifax Explosion - Sixty Symbols
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- Опубликовано: 3 дек 2017
- Sixty Symbols regular Dr Meghan Gray on an infamous event that occurred in her home town - the Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917.
More links and info below ↓ ↓ ↓
Will add some additional interview footage soon to / nottinghamscience
Chemistry videos: / periodicvideos
MORE DETAILS
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic: maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/...
Nova Scotia archives stuff: novascotia.ca/news/smr/2009-1...
CBC: newsinteractives.cbc.ca/halifa...
While not a typical video for us, Dr Gray is a Sixty Symbols stalwart and really wanted to share the story of this explosion which is an event of great interest to her home town of Halifax --- and an event with a pretty significant science component.
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Yes it's Dartmouth, not Darthmouth... Chill out, Internet!
Ehhh yo, Dartmouth and Halifx ain't the same thing yo, try riding down Primrose past 10pm on your Ironically rustic $2000 bicycle wearing blundstones and a man bun. Shits dangerous and thats mis information.
Great video. Didn't know you were from Halifax.I went to Park School in Darthmouth and used to haunt the old museum... must have watched their presentation on the Explosion 400 times over my childhood.
I live near there NmE currently and walk on it sometimes as late as 7 pm.
Darth Mouth sounds cooler though.
To be fair, Darth Mouth does sound like a pretty cool Star Wars character.
Dr. Gray is a great storyteller
This is the most engaging, relaxing and delightful time
Traffic laws are not just for your personal inconvenience.
Have you ever driven through Halifax? It's like the city planners were on coke and then decided to switch to meth once they crossed the bridge to Dartmouth.
@@leeterthanyou LOL!
*"We have a variety of things, all designed to blow up."*
Sounds like a sales pitch - in a Rick & Morty commercial.
Sounds like Ratchet and Clank...
+Rex Lastname - "We have a variety of things, all designed to blow up."
Okay, but do you have Bacon? (Not Canadian bacon) =)
Almost sounds like a punchline to a joke.
6:24.
I've lived in Halifax for 35 years and this is the best straight forward explanation of the explosion I've ever heard. Good job!
Yes, she’s great at telling the story!
modern blacksmith your right it’s so much better than the heritage commercial. I subbed your channel a while back, I figured you were maritimes. cheers from spud island
modernblacksmith ..did you have family members die? And what is Halifax like today?
What was the captain of the Imo thinking though? He's on the wrong side, he's too fast, he doesn't make way when he ought to and then goes for "outta my way!" a second time.
Penny Lane Aren't all Norwegians vikings? They never follow the rules.
You could say he had a volatile temperament and an explosive temper.
According to HalifaxExplosion.org Captain Haakon along with five of the crew were killed by shrapnel. So he probably lived long enough to realize he made a horrible mistake.
Initial-D was playing on the Gramaphone
We shall never know. He didn't survive. He may have had a totally reasonable explanation for not going to the right.
Otoh, he was also French.
wow someone can actually draw a readable diagram map
"I'm not making way for a french ship!"
If you put it like that, the Imo captain seems a lot more reasonable!
Loved this video, just disappointed that I can't make any French jokes...
As a Norwegian, nobody who drives here knows how to read a yield sign.. I suppose that extends to seamanship as well.
He'll surrender right of way right away.
I've saw those signs in the US when I last visited and I couldn't read them at first either. They should say give way.
As much as I feel sad for the lives lost, this story is so damn interesting
Shangori there's a story that once some of the sailors from the mont blanc got ashore and they tried to persuade people to go farther inland, no one was listening to them because they couldn't understand them because they were speaking French so apparently a sailor grabbed an infant from a mothers hands and just kept on booking it inland. I grew up in Halifax so I learned a lot about this in school, very interesting event despite how tragic it is. one of the more horrible things that happened was people being shredded by the glass in their windows that exploded inwards. You can ses pieces of the ship that are marked all around the city from being thrown by the explosion
There is an additional story on that day of a telegram operator that sacrificed his life to send out a message to an Incoming train about to enter Halifax..... he saved many lives that day.
Matthew Walker Telegram operator? I thought it was a train station staff (announcer/controller type) who stopped all inbound traffic and quite likely saved their lives.
ruclips.net/video/rw-FbwmzPKo/видео.html
That's one of the worst parts about large explosives. You'll see them in time to be curious and come look out your window, only for the blast to then catch up and shatter it into you.
Great video, loved the narration and use of historical footage. More like this please :D
Should look up the Canadian Heritage Minutes. Lots of Canadians know about events like this one because of them.
It was mostly movie footage, but ... yeah. Fascinating.
I despise modern documentaries with their loud dramatic music and the slow creepy narration.
This proves there is no need for that. This was fascinating!
Not mentioned in this video is the massive snowstorm that hit Halifax in the days following the explosion. The storm was a NorEaster (A strong storm coming from the northeast that is very unpredictable) and it dumped approximately 40cm (15.7 freedom units) of snow in less than 24 hrs. This severely compounded the tragedy and delayed resources coming from Boston
A true tragedy. Heritage moment
Freedom units, love it lol
>> Freedom units
You win today's Internet.
I'm blonde. Someone explain freedom units to me?
I have just commented about this and now see your comment a day before mine- and with more detail too. I'm glad to see you made this comment so people might know of these important additional details of the tragedy.
I visited Halifax with my kids and learned more about the Halifax Explosion than most Americans, but still found this video riveting and informative. Cheers from Boston, thank you for the trees, let us continue the friendship for another 100 years.
I am from newfoundland, its great to see atlantic canadian physicists presenting great material such as this!
And that why you respect your lane people
It's not like I'm carrying tons of TNT & Pectic acid with me on the freeway.
Jamie Rosales no, but someone else might.
@@Mynameisjami92 picric
Why should I respect lane people? What's a lane person?
And then there was the dude with the telegraph! Thanks CBC... Heritage minutes for the win.
Vince Coleman: come on, come on, ACKNOWLEDGE!
As a Haligonian and long time fan of Brady's work, this was such a treat to find in my subscription feed! I honestly just stared at the thumbnail for about a minute trying to understand what was happening.
AND Dr. Gray is from Halifax!? This is surreal.
From the Maritimes and lived in Halifax last year, this was a happy surprise in my sub feed as well!!
Bevittna I am from NB and it is such a rare treat to see a Maritimes related story on a prominent channel. Not a happy story but interesting and I'm glad they told it.
As a long time resident of the Halifax area and a long time Sixty Symbols subscriber, I really enjoyed this video. But apologies to the Star Wars fans in the audience, the city across the harbour from Halifax was and still is Dartmouth (only 1 h). :-)
I had to laugh at "Darth Mouth."
Must be a Dal grad.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
You may want to change that city's name ;D
I had never heard of the Halifax explosion until my submarine USS Providence visited Halifax in 2000. I was walking down the street and happened to look at a newspaper rack with a headline that said several dozen survivors of the explosion were still alive and still enrolled in a trust fund set up by the government to care for the people blinded by the explosion. Several thousands of people (including hundreds of children) were watching the burning ship through their windows. When the ship blew up, it sent glass shards flying into their eyes blinding them.
Not necessarily shards that did it - I heard a lot were blinded by the flash too.
A catalyst for the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind)
@@elevown Yeah, these people watched a small nuke go off with their naked eyes.
@@keegangray7783 A noble institution that grew from the roots of such a tragedy as is often the case...
The Imo said "You go right, I'll go left."
Wizmut lol
Yeah, right.
I live in Dartmouth, and as I live by the harbour, it's nigh on impossible to visualize an explosion clearing the water all the way to the bottom. It's breathtaking to even imagine.
A reverend who survived Titanic was also present and set up triage centers to help the wounded. His study on how people reacted during/after the explosion became a seminal work regarding disaster behaviors.
masterimbecile Priests are always surprising scientific for people whos lives are dedicated to the unknowable
If it's a reverend wouldn't it be semen-al...?
Alistair Shaw It sorta makes sense. They devote their lives to study. So their skills at note taking, memorization, abstract thought, are all pretty high. If they choose to also apply those skills to scientific endeavors, they generally do well. They may just have to deal with some cognitive dissonance.
@@error.418 yeah thats fair
@@wierdalien1 its kinda a new American trend for religious people to be very anti-science. For centuries, the Catholic Church and other religions were basically at the forefront of science. Islam was the source of a huge advancement in mathematics too.
What's incredible is that the IMO ship actually survived. It was back in use one year after this event. Most likely quicker than the people injured by this.
Yup, this was also the case with nuclear weapon tests with vastly more powerful weapons - some of the structure gets blown off, but most of the ship is pretty much intact unless it gets a direct hit (like the Mont Blanc in this case). Sinking a ship is a lot easier than utterly destroying it - most of the ships that sink in shallows (like harbors) get repaired pretty quickly.
Hopefully not with the same Captain or crew !!!!!
Excellent demo. I'm from Dartmouth and loved the honourable mention! We also got a snowstorm on Dec. 7. Very few structures withstood the blast in Halifax. Your description was riveting.
Darthmouth and halifax are like two of the coolest city names I've ever seen
Don't forget Halifax the town, been around a lot longer than Halifax the city.
As cool as “Darthmouth” is.... it’s actually called Dartmouth
Duessa2000 you say as if the right name is less cool
Danilo Oliveira I think it is... it’s just named after Dartmouth in England, which was very originally named because it was at the mouth of the river dart.
well... that kinda kills the magic.
I absolutely loved your narration and how you did it. You set up everything the way it should. You outlined everything, you described it in such a way as to paint a very realistic scenario (which of course it was) and it was fascinating! I loved it! Keep up the great work!
As others have noted, it's Dartmouth (not DartHmouth). :-) 100 years at 9 04 35 am Atlantic time, on Wednesday. About 2000 killed at that time. Halifax still sends a big Xmas tree to Boston each year to thank them for their kind assistance after the Explosion.
J H yes, and the tree is paraded through the streets during the parade of lights before it starts its journey to Boston. A long standing and well deserved tradition for Halifax and Boston.
That's really cool.
half of the info was stated in the video. Did you just pause to mention the spelling mistake and then decided to tell the story yourself? people, please just watch videos to the end before storming off to the comment section.
Part of that was that Boston and the Mass General Hospital sent aid without Halifax even asking. When we in BOS had the Marathon attack, Halifax was the first to donate with $$ going to the pediatric ward of the Mass General.
@@RonCham I never knew that! Thank you, as a Canadian living on Vanvouver island I am glad to hear that my country will always help our neighbour if they are in need. :)
A terrible tragedy told terribly well
I´ve seen a narration of this before, but this is much better.
Very sadly I remembered this video when learning about Lebanon and Beyrouth... :'(
Time to open a historical channel, Brady?
That would be SO DAMN INTERESTING
Is objectivity not historical?
The great war" is the best channel
Arrgghh ... not really no.
Thank you for this great Memorial video of the most horrific event in Canadian history.
My grandfather (b. 1898) was an apprentice carpenter in Portland, ME and dropped everything to go help with the immediate rebuilding. I grew up outside Boston and the annual gift of a Christmas tree from Hallifax for Boston Common still brings a tear to my eye.
Your grandfathers help along with other Americans is ONE of the reasons we love Americans. Stay safe.
I've been intrigued by this for a while now since I saw a doco on it a few years back. Most of the details in this video were not in the doco which was about an hour long. Thanks for doing such a great mini doco.
Darth-mouth. A Sith riddled town.
the emo gave into the Darth side
"And the Sith Lord called upon his new subordinate: Darth Mouth"
themaskedcrusader
Us dartmouthians are from "The Dark Side" if you ask a haligonian
Or Innsmouth
From now on you will be called as Darth... Sand.
Wonderfully put together and informative video of a very important part of not only Nova Scotia but Canada's history. I too am from Nova Scotia originally and this story has always intrigued me. Loved it. Thank you very much.
I have been watching Sixty Symbols, Numberphile, Computerphile and what have you for years. This is my favourite video of them all!
*Mont Blanc whistles once*
Mont Blank thinking: Get out of the way you fool!
*IMO whistles once*
IMO thinking: In My Opinion...
Holy cow! (Great video).
I've seen other videos around this subject. This is by far the best in terms of details and delivery. Very well made.
Visited a friend in Canada about 10 years ago. He lived in the Albro Lake area and there was a warped and bent cannon mounted in his street that was flung out from this explosion. They were a long way away from the harbour.
Very interesting peace of history. And very well told.
Thanks a ton.
Thanks many kilotons.
@@jeffirwin7862 00f
Excellent storytelling!!!
I was in Halifax two years ago and when you go to the Titanic Cemetery the first thing you notice is your walking in on the tour is a whole bunch more tombstones with a different date than the Titanic on it I recommend everybody go to Halifax at least once in their life put it on your bucket list
Excellent video, very well told. The intimacy and brevity of RUclips can sometimes be better than big budget TV docs. This is one of those, for sure.
DARTH MOUTH, the Sith lord with something to say.
Win.
lol
He would beat the rebels down with arguments until they surrendered.
Very nicely narrated.. sad incident...
Really great presentation of the subject. Very interesting and very intelligently described.
Cheers from Halifax! Great job on the video.
Isn't it hard to have that kind of history?
Are you guys ok now?
Unbelievable, I had no idea about this. Great video about a tragic incident.
This is why we send a xmas tree to Boston every year since, because they were the 1st to send help.
Gray is a amazing story teller!
Great video! Thanks for posting. I stumbled across a book about the Halifax Explosion and have been fascinated ever since.
Just watched the CBC documentary. Thanks again for sharing.
Aw man, fascinating story, well told. It really is interesting to look back and trace the relatively innocuous events that lead to a staggering, earth-shaking (literally ) tragedy. And it's all too easy to imagine the crowds of people gathering to look at a spectacle that, unbeknownst to them, is about to claim their lives.
Yup. So many people in this comment thread seem to have 20/20 hindsight, sadly. Only the Mont Blanc crew understood the danger, and except for a single guy (who was unlucky to be hit by a piece of the far-flung debris), all of them survived.
What a brilliant storyteller!
This story reminds me of the Texas City, Texas explosion. A ship loaded with Amonium Nitrate exploded dockside. The blast destroyed the port, a refinery, the town, and several other vessels. Something like every Texas City firefighter but 3 were killed in the blast. Windows shattered 10 miles away, and the ships anchor was found like 5 miles away. Rail cars were tossed and torn to shreds. The footage looks like hell on earth. Supposedly the captain tried to put out the fire by closing his hatches and flooding the hatch with steam.
ruclips.net/video/4_12dqdxaGg/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/O8Ygb2G8Ufs/видео.html
This video was great! I love learning about major accidents like this and what exactly went wrong in the process.
By coincident, on the same day Finland gained independence from Russia as the Finnish parliament voted to accept the declaration of independence. This was shortly after the Russian communists had taken power in a coup in then-capital Saint Petersburg.
A compelling retelling.
Thanks for this timely video :) Cheers from PEI Canada, Bryan.
Pretty cool to see one of my favourite channels doing a video on my hometown
Wtf Imo captain
I was wondering, was he taken to court marshal, you could say he didnt know, but mont blanc had the right of passege in any case, today for example all boats move to their right as far as that is possible so things like this dont happen...
fisca332 If IMO had collided with the smaller oncoming boat they could risk damaging the hull and having a hard time reacting to any whistle signals after all.
IMO decided to stay with the unconventional route since it had already been redirected.
I'm no captain but i can imagine making 2 hard turns in a row in a narrow straight could cause some weird pathing to occur.
That would be impossible, the Imo was close to the Mont Blanc when it exploded and the Captain, First Officer and the Pilot all died in the blast. Some others of the crew survived, but well... not like they'd be in charge of the course.
The initial inquiry also seems to have blamed the Mont Blanc for the accident. With a follow up one giving blame to both sides. Whether those were entirely fair on the matter I don't know, but it was the opinion at the time I guess.
Fredrik S yeah i see your point, but my friend that is a ship capitain says that the right hand side rule should ALWAYS be used so it can make the intentions of the other ship predictable, even if its not the most efficient way of avoiding a collision, i sail a boat (not a big one 30feet) myself and belive me, its very reassuring to know where the oncoming ship is going to turn. But ill ask my friend im really intriuged by this
Quickshot0 cool, thanks ill look into it in more detail
The whole time listening to this, I was just getting angrier and angrier at the IMO. Not only do they stay on course despite usual protocol, but they do it AGAIN knowing there will be a collision if no one does anything. And then they cant even commit to that side and shift sides?! Are you for real?!
More than likely this was due to the Imo being unable to maneuver fully due to riding so high in the water, as was mentioned. Since they couldn't steer very well their idea was for the other, more presumably more capable, ship to move.. but with the lack of communication this didn't work out.
Curious to speculate if radio tech would have saved the day here. Curious how many times it actually has prevented such similar tragedies. You don't get a big story when nothing bad happens, which is unfortunate in that we forget to realize how much better things are.
@@error.418 idk. The big problem was the secrecy surrounding the cargo. Perhaps that could have been explained more easily over the radio, but then again, they would probably still not have transmitted a message that made it clear that they had explosives on board. If they were worried about U-boats in the harbour, they'd probably figure there could be spies nearby to pick up the radio transmission.
Although one would imagine radio would have provided better ways to get the point across than just repeating the same whistle signal, even without literally saying "We're loaded to the brim with explosives".
In any other situation, the most that would have happened was a simple collision. MAYBE sinking one of the ships. Unfortunate, but not THAT big of a deal.
@@omikronweapon Did they have a signal at the time that indicated "give way, emergency situation?" I think radio would have allowed them to be more clear that it was an "emergency situation" and that should have been sufficient, no need to mention the cargo. A boat collision is expensive and can cause loss of lives. The offending ship here would not have just decided, "whatever, we'll just hit 'em."
Wonderful story telling Dr. Gray! I knew about this explosition but told that way, it makes so much more sense. Thank you!
Thank you for this well done video Dr. Grey. My Grandfather John Alfred Smith lived in Halifax during the 1917 explosion. He told of driving an Ambulance Rescue Truck throughout the area locating persons affected by the devastating blast.
Wow, 'm speechless, never heard of that
Cool my home city got a feature on one of my favourite channels!
Meghan's videos were always my favorites, and now I know why! As a fellow Haligonian living abroad (Japan), her accent was subconsciously tugging at my heartstrings. Thanks for bringing this story to the attention of the world (Haligonians have never forgotten).
Edited to add info: the Mont Blanc refitters, understanding the risks, apparently lined the entire ship with wood to reduce the risk of sparks, and used copper nails and fittings for the same reason. Designed to stop onboard accidents, but didn't help in the collision.
Superb video and explanation. I had seen descriptions of the Halifax Explosion before, but have never seen each ship's exact maneuvers laid out so clearly against the geography of the harbor.
Surreal seeing a map of where I live on one of my favourite youtube channels
peiceofcheese87 same bro ns for the win
I only feel slightly connected as I'm from the gaspesie, but I'm glad people are talking about this.
Loved the video and the host.
What a great video. Thank you for enlightening us all on this tragic incident; one I was not aware of at all.
Thank you Dr. Gray, excellent narrative. One remnant of the disaster, each year Halifax supplies the city of Boston, MA with a Christmas tree as thanks for being the first to reach Halifax with relief.
Halifax, which is in Nova Scotia, which is in Canada, which is on Earth, which is in Canada.
mastod0n1 hahaha omg picnicface?! Bootlegged copies of boots and legs
Halifax, which is in Calderdale, which is in West Yorkshire, which is in England, which is on Earth.
Nope. Halifax is Canadian now. It's ours. Deal with it, UK scrubs.
Splodey!
Carl Marks Our Halifax is bigger than your Halifax!
This video is amazing! She is a great storyteller
I had no idea Dr Gray was a haligonian! Big thank yous from the Eastern Shore!
Another great video from Nottingham Uni. I was there in Chemistry Dept. and Maths Dept. many decades ago
Amazing storytelling!
Amazing story and storytelling
Thank you Dr. Gray, I've read about and seen numerous videos on this but your telling of the story is the most revealing I've heard/seen. There is palpable angst in your voice as is warranted by the events of that terrible day. The thousands of citizens could have no way of knowing just how precarious there position as spectator was, but for many of them they would not know what killed them. Perhaps even more horrifying than the deaths were the thousands who were maimed, many losing there eyesight from flying glass. As I write this comment it's half a year after the Beirut blast that, huge as it was, might have only been about 15% of the energy of the Halifax explosion. Imagine if we had the video gear we have now back then.
Thank you for this very clear, easy-to-grasp explanation with drawing. So tragic. I was actually reading the book [second reading], Rising Barometer by Hugh MacLennan on Dec. 6, 2017 when it dawned on me that it was exactly 100 years ago that the explosion had taken place. Pretty incredible timing. I've since then researched more to make it even more real, and not just a factual story. I commemorated the tragedy along with Halifax by watching the ceremony of the 100th anniversary that took place there in the rain.
A classic story told on Canadian television as a commercial.
Wow, that was *very* interesting. Excellent explanation - nicely done. ;O)-
Very very well done, thanks for posting - did anyone else come here after (or in my case while) reading "Barometer Rising"?
Wow had no idea about this event. Thanks for the insightful video!
I remember reading that most if not all of the Imo's sailors that were under deck survived, protected by the hull.
my grandpa used to say that "we're gonna have a Halifax situation" and now I know why.
the funny thing here is that this actually taught me more about the halifax explosion than when i was in school in halifax
I never knew that! Very interesting and great storytelling.
Hey i was just gunna request a periodic videos on the halifax explosion and picric acid but a sixty symbols video works well too!
Dr Gray is an amazing story teller!
Very well produced video. Thank you.
Great Video - I will show it to my ESL class as a historical event on Dec 6, clear explanation and graphics -- thanks
Whenever I mess up with anything, I will come back to this video.
I will come back, and remind myself that I could have been the captain of the Imo. And I feel somewhat better about myself.
You probably also didn't misspell Dartmouth on RUclips. So there's that, too.
Holy jeez! Being from the U.S., I don't think we learned about this event in grammar school, but we definitely should have! Wow.
That's because they don't teach you guys anything about the rest of the world it seems. Only what happens in your own country. Not trying to be nasty about it.. But have met people from the US who came up here expecting to see igloos... When my parents were younger they met a couple from the states who were surprised to see how common it was for us to have TV's and drive cars like they did.. :P in the words of Michael Jackson. ~ "So ignorant..." XD
Sketch, you're not wrong.
I remember my teacher played a video about this for my class in the 5th grade. It was so fascinating to me I had her play the video again the next day. Can’t remember why we watched it in the first place though.
Kudos for using the ships from the Milton Bradley / VTech Electronic Battleships that I had as a kid and is still going.
Horrific destruction and loss of life. But this was "only" a 3kt TNT blast. Have a look at the equivalent kt TNT yields of even the early nuclear weapons. It shows how frightening nuclear weapons really are.
A message to nukes:
RESPECT your elders
by frightening I hope you meant totally awesome.
3kt is a firecracker compared the small country destroyers they have today.
@Alcide Cloridrix Bit of a necro post, but the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were 10 and 15 kT respectively, while the standard NATO hydrogen bomb sits around 360kT today. I'd say 3kT is quite small compared to those
There's always these guys that go "yeah, but NUCLEAR explosion are even better". Missing the point. This isnt a story/video about comparing blast yields, it's about human tragedy. The events leading UP to the blast. And the carnage afterwards. Even about some of the intricaties of war, secrecy vs safety.
And then people feel the need to go "yeah, but we can now blow even more people up, by design. Isn't that cooler than those rubbish bombs they had back then?"
Very interesting video. I wondered how this compared to the explosion at RAF Fauld in 1943. Wikipedia descrbes both as the largest non-nuclear man made explosion but RAF Fauld was underground and had a much lower loss of life.
MCPhssthpok you've just answered my question. I could not remember tge factories name
Grahame Hadden Tom Scott
Alistair Shaw Indeed
Thank you this Brady, more people need to hear bout this footnote of history.
Really great presentation. Thank you! I am fascinated with Nova Scotia.