Crush, Texas
I have no doubt that we as a species today would still happily line up for this kind of awesomely stupid spectacle, most of us with our smartphones out. The difference from 1896 is we have enough regulations to prevent such a thing.Another fun detail from the event's aftermath that likely wouldn't happen today:> Crush was immediately fired from the Katy railroad. In light of a lack of negative publicity, however, he was rehired the next day.edit: the Wikipedia entry has some nice footnote/sources. I didn't read them all but the one from wacohistory.org has even more interesting details:http://www.wacohistory.org/items/show/70I think I'll bookmark this article for the times when people complain about how much dumber and shallower we are compared to folks from the olden days:> Two people died and at least six other people were seriously injured by flying debris, including a Waco photojournalist, Jarvis Deane, who lost an eye. While the railway moved in quickly to remove the larger wreckage, souvenir hunters swarmed over the site, carrying off most of the remains despite burning their hands on the shrapnel.