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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
An accident is an unintended and usually undesirable event that is not deliberately caused by humans.[1][2] Although in ordinary conversations, intentionality is the only factor most people consider, formally, accidents require three factors: it must be unintended, unpreventable, and unexpected.[3] The term accident usually implies the presence of unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Many researchers and professionals in injury prevention discourage the use of the word accident, because the word accident suggests there is no fault, no guilt, no control, and that the situation could not have been anticipated or prevented.[4] Instead, experts emphasize preventable factors that increase risk and worsen outcomes.[5] For example, while a tree falling in a windstorm may not involve human intention, factors such as its condition, placement, or maintenance may contribute to the outcome. Similarly, most road collisions stem from risky behaviour or preventable circumstances rather than being truly accidental;[3] the perception that they are accidents rather than predictable and preventable events was strengthened in the mid-20th century due to automobile industry influence through media.[6]
In recent years worldwide, the most common causes of accidental deaths have been road traffic incidents and falls. Writing of accidental deaths, one author says the "vast majority of accidents are not really accidents of chance, but rather accidents of folly, negligence, and blatant human misjudgment", with research showing that up to 80% of events that are called accidents are caused by human error.[3] Many different theoretical models have been proposed for analyzing accidents, but no single model has yet proved sufficient for these often-complex events.
Physical examples of accidents include unintended motor vehicle collisions, malfunctioning machinery, drowning, falling, or unintentional contact with something sharp or hot or electrified or poisonous (including drug overdoses). Unintended pregnancies and unintended scientific discoveries are also sometimes described as accidental.
Non-physical examples include unintentionally revealing a secret or otherwise saying something incorrectly, or forgetting an appointment.
Accidents during the course of work, or arising out of it, are called work accidents, occupational accidents, or similar terms. According to the International Labour Organization, approximately 400 million accidents happen on the job each year (5% of the world population), causing more than 300,000 deaths annually (especially in mining and construction) and millions of long-term disabilities (especially back injuries).[7][8]
In contrast, leisure-related accidents are mainly sports injuries, with lower fatality rates.[citation needed]
In process manufacturing, a primary accident (such as leakage, fire or explosion) may propagate to nearby units, resulting in an escalating chain of failure, which is often called a domino effect accident.
Commercial products sometimes emerge from accidental discoveries, famously including penicillin, Post-it notes, and microwave ovens. Injuries that occur during travel to or from employment are sometimes counted statistically as work accidents, but are usually classified separately as transportation accidents instead.
Aviation safety has improved dramatically through decades of concerted effort. Although individual crashes can have high fatality counts and widespread publicity, modern air travel has approximately just 1 fatal crash per 16 million commercial flights (as of 2024), or 1 death per 35 billion passenger-kilometers (22 billion miles), far better than historical rates, and generally the safest way to travel a given distance over land.[9][10] Airplane accidents occur most commonly during the landing process.[11]
Unenclosed two-wheel vehicles are more economical but less visible than the much larger cars and trucks on the road, and bikes offer their riders little protection from collision or weather or hazardous road conditions. For these reasons, bicycle or motorcycle travel typically has multiple times the risk of car travel over a given distance.[12][13] Electric bikes present the further risk of accidental fire from the overheating of their powerful batteries, especially from lower-quality manufacturers.[14]
Water transportation accidents are far too diverse for any simple generalization or statistic. Modern mega-cruise ships are akin to slow-motion cities, where accidental deaths are dwarfed by ordinary heart attacks and strokes.[15] At the opposite extreme of size, technology, and regulation, refugee boats[16] and whitewater kayaks[17] are much riskier than luxury cruise ships. Ferries overloaded with impoverished crowds capsize regularly,[18] and so do the sailboats of wealthy adventurers,[19] and cargo ships in hazardous waters.[20] Any attempt to summarize maritime accidents would need to recognize all these differences and more.
Most vehicle collisions are triggered by preventable driver behaviors such as drunk, drowsy, distracted, or dangerously fast driving, and are not true accidents in the strictest sense. The use of the word accident to describe car wrecks was promoted by the US National Automobile Chamber of Commerce in the middle of the 20th century, as a way to make vehicle-related deaths and injuries seem like an unavoidable matter of fate, rather than a problem that could be addressed by automotive safety. The automobile industry accomplished this by writing customized articles about local collisions as a free service for newspapers that used the industry's preferred language. Since 1994, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked media and the public not to use the word accident to describe vehicle collisions.[6]
For a given distance, passenger trains (and also buses) are considerably safer than car traffic, although riskier than commercial aircraft.[21] Major rail accidents can also arise from freight trains, carrying bulk quantities of hazardous cargo but few people.[22] Unlike most other transportation accidents, a large fraction of train casualties are people out along the route, not riding on the train itself.[23][24]
According to the World Health Organization, globally more than 3 million accidental deaths occur in a typical year. The most common causes are road traffic incidents (1.2 million annual deaths, especially for young males) and falls (0.7 million annual deaths, especially for elderly females). Both fatal and nonfatal accident rates in developing countries are at least double the per-capita rates in high-income countries.[25][26] British statistics indicate that accidental deaths were much less frequent before high-powered machinery began to spread with the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s.[27]
The United States collects detailed statistical injury data (sampled from 100 hospitals) through the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System administered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This program was revised in 2000 to include all injuries, rather than just injuries involving products.[28] Data on emergency department visits is also collected through the annual National Health Interview Survey by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.[29] The US Bureau of Labor Statistics website includes extensive data on workplace accidents.[30]
Many theoretical models to characterize and analyze accidents have been proposed,[31] which can be classified by type. Most accidents have no single cause, and no single model is the sole correct approach for analyzing them.[32] Notable models include:[33]
Ishikawa diagrams are sometimes used to illustrate root-cause analysis and five whys discussions.
1a. an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance. 1b. lack of intention or necessity : chance. 2a. an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance.
1. a short, sudden and unexpected event or occurrence that results in an unwanted and undesirable outcome ... and must directly or indirectly be the result of human activity rather than a natural event. (Hollnagel, 2004:5). 2. Accidents are the result of technical failures, human errors or organisational problems (Hovden, Albrechtsen and Herrera, 2010:855). 3. An accident as an unplanned and uncontrolled event in which the action or reaction of an object, substance, and person results in personal injury or the productivity thereof (Heinrich, 1959).
Quotations related to Accident at Wikiquote
Media related to Accidents at Wikimedia Commons
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
An accident is an unintended and usually undesirable event that is not deliberately caused by humans. Although in ordinary conversations, intentionality is the only factor most people consider, formally, accidents require three factors: it must be unintended, unpreventable, and unexpected. The term accident usually implies the presence of unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Many researchers and professionals in injury prevention discourage the use of the word accident, because the word accident suggests there is no fault, no guilt, no control, and that the situation could not have been anticipated or prevented. Instead, experts emphasize preventable factors that increase risk and worsen outcomes. For example, while a tree falling in a windstorm may not involve human intention, factors such as its condition, placement, or maintenance may contribute to the outcome. Similarly, most road collisions stem from risky behaviour or preventable circumstances rather than being truly accidental; the perception that they are accidents rather than predictable and preventable events was strengthened in the mid-20th century due to automobile industry influence through media. In recent years worldwide, the most common causes of accidental deaths have been road traffic incidents and falls. Writing of accidental deaths, one author says the "vast majority of accidents are not really accidents of chance, but rather accidents of folly, negligence, and blatant human misjudgment", with research showing that up to 80% of events that are called accidents are caused by human error. Many different theoretical models have been proposed for analyzing accidents, but no single model has yet proved sufficient for these often-complex events.
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. It is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public. The accident was the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history until the Church Rock uranium mill spill four months later. On the seven-point logarithmic International Nuclear Event Scale, the TMI-2 reactor accident is rated Level 5, an "Accident with Wider Consequences". The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of water to escape from the pressurized isolated coolant loop. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). TMI training and operating procedures left operators and management ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by the LOCA. During the accident, those inadequacies were compounded by design flaws, such as poor control design, the use of multiple similar alarms, and a failure of the equipment to indicate either the coolant-inventory level or the position of the stuck-open PORV. The accident heightened nuclear safety concerns among the general public and led to new regulations for the nuclear industry. It accelerated the decline of efforts to build new reactors. Anti-nuclear movement activists expressed worries about regional health effects from the accident. Some epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident did determine that there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of cancer, while other studies did not. Due to the nature of such studies, a causal connection linking the accident with cancer is difficult to prove. Cleanup at TMI-2 started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cost of about $1 billion (equivalent to $2 billion in 2025). TMI-1 was restarted in 1985, then retired in 2019 due to operating losses. It is expected to return to service in either 2027 or 2028 as part of a deal to power Microsoft data centers.
A work accident, workplace accident, occupational accident, or accident at work is a "discrete occurrence in the course of work" leading to physical or mental occupational injury. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), more than 337 million accidents happen on the job each year, resulting, together with occupational diseases, in more than 2.3 million deaths annually. The phrase "in the course of work" can include work-related accidents happening off the company's premises, and can include accidents caused by third parties, according to Eurostat. The definition of work accident includes accidents occurring "while engaged in an economic activity, or at work, or carrying on the business of the employer" according to the ILO. The phrase "physical or mental harm" means any injury, disease, or death. Occupational accidents differ from occupational diseases as accidents are unexpected and unplanned occurrences (e.g., mine collapse), while occupational diseases are "contracted as a result of an exposure over a period of time to risk factors arising from work activity" (e.g., miner's lung). Incidents that fall within the definition of occupational accidents include cases of acute poisoning, attacks by humans and animals, insects etc., slips and falls on pavements or staircases, traffic collisions, and accidents on board means of transportation in the course of work, accidents in airports, stations and so on. There is no consensus as to whether commuting accidents (i.e. accidents on the way to work and while returning home after work) should be considered to be work accidents. The ESAW methodology excludes them; the ILO includes them in its conventions concerning health & safety at work, although it lists them as a separate category of accidents; and some countries (e.g., Greece) do not distinguish them from other work accidents. A fatal accident at work is defined as an accident which leads to the death of a victim. The time within which the death may occur varies among countries: in Netherlands an accident is registered as fatal if the victim dies during the same day that the accident happened, in Germany if death came within 30 days, while Belgium, France and Greece set no time limit. Where the accidents involve multiple fatalities, they are often referred to as industrial disasters.
The Goiânia accident (Brazilian Portuguese: [ɡo(j)ˈjɐniɐ]), also known locally as the caesium-137 accident/caesium-137 Goiânia, was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source, inside a lead-and-steel medical device, was found by scavenger thieves at an abandoned hospital site in the city. The thieves, and then workers at the scrapyard owned by Devair Ferreira, who bought the device from the thieves, used tools to open the device and expose the caesium-137 crystals (specifically a caesium chloride salt). Ferreira brought the exposed caesium-137 crystals to his home, sharing them with his family and neighbours; the caesium-137 crystals were subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths – two of Ferreira's family members and two of his scrapyard employees. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated. In the consequent cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
