Five mighty noises
Tunguska, Krakatoa, Tambora, a comet that broke the heavens, and a Chicago fire.
5 questions. Pick an answer to see the explanation. Share your result at the end.
Where did the Tunguska event of 30 June 1908 occur?
The explosion occurred above the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, central Siberia, around 7:14 AM local time. It flattened roughly 2,150 square kilometres of forest and was equivalent to about 10–15 megatons of TNT. The first scientific expedition (Leonid Kulik's) did not reach the site for nineteen years.
How far away was the 1883 Krakatoa explosion heard?
The fourth explosion of Krakatoa on 27 August 1883 was heard by the chief of police on Rodrigues island in the western Indian Ocean, 4,800 km away — over four hours after the eruption, on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean. It is the loudest sound in recorded human history.
In what year did Mount Tambora — the largest volcanic eruption in 1,300 years — erupt?
Tambora, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, erupted catastrophically on 10 April 1815. It killed roughly 71,000 people in the immediate region and cooled the Earth by about half a degree Celsius for two years — producing the Year Without a Summer in 1816. Krakatoa (1883) was about a quarter as powerful, despite being more famous.
What did Tycho Brahe's observations of the Great Comet of 1577 prove?
Tycho's parallax measurements — comparing the comet's position from his observatory at Uraniborg against another site — showed the comet was much further than the Moon. That meant the comet was moving through what Aristotelian astronomy held to be unchanging crystal spheres, demolishing the medieval cosmology. Elliptical orbits would not be established until Kepler in the early 17th century.
True or false: Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the Great Chicago Fire by kicking over a lantern.
False. The cow story was invented in 1871 by a Chicago Tribune reporter named Michael Ahern, who in an 1893 interview admitted he had made it up to make his coverage more vivid. The actual cause of the 1871 Chicago Fire's ignition is genuinely uncertain. The Chicago Board of Police and Fire Commissioners' 1871 investigation specifically exonerated Catherine O'Leary, but the exoneration received almost no coverage.