Amelia Earhart once said, “You can do anything you decide to do.” So we did.
I was in second grade when it began for me. I was just coming back from lunch recess when a classmate came running up to me in the hallway.
“Do you remember that space shuttle Mrs. Gilvary was supposed to be on?” she told me. “It blew up!”
The day was January 28, 1986, and the space shuttle was the Challenger.
Our teacher, Mrs. Gilvary, was one of 11,000 applicants to NASA’s Teacher in Space project. I don’t think she’d made it past the first round, but to our class, it was only by a hair that Christa McAuliffe had beaten Mrs. Gilvary for the right to claim the title of first teacher in space. We’d listened excitedly for weeks about the plans for the Challenger mission. It was to be an unforgettable moment where America’s schoolchildren got to witness space exploration firsthand, but just 73 seconds into its mission, it became a moment we would remember for a different reason.
Amelia was also in second grade when she learned of her first disaster, but hers wasn’t happening in real time. Someone told her about the Titanic, and soon she was reading every book and watching every documentary she could about the ill-fated ship. The next year, it was the disappearance of Amelia Earhart that grabbed her interest, and a trip to Earhart’s hometown of Atchison, Kansas cemented my Amelia’s curiosity and absolute need to know what happened.
I’d been making podcasts for years at this point. I have a long list of favorites. So when Amelia became interested in topics like the Titanic and Amelia Earhart, I thought surely there must be a podcast about this stuff. There’s a podcast for everything. Only there wasn’t. Not for kids.
On one hand, I get it. These are tough topics for anyone, and not all kids are ready to hear about the worst things humans can face. But kids are curious, just like I was watching the Challenger news coverage back in 1986, and just like Amelia was on our trip to Atchison. Making a show about disasters that is both intriguing and appropriate for children is a tall order. But here’s the thing about Amelia and me. If we want to do something, we’re just going to go ahead and do it. So we did.
That’s Terrible! is the result. Every other week, we talk about a different disaster or mystery and interview an expert on the topic. And starting today, we’ll be telling those stories here too. Be sure to subscribe to get all our updates, and listen to That’s Terrible wherever you get your podcasts.