
One largely forgotten tragedy that needs to be remembered is
one that happened in my hometown, Johnstown, PA. In 1881 wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick (who narrowly missed being on the Titanic see video below), Andrew Mellon, and others from Pittsburgh built an earthen dam north of the city at South Fork to create a private lake for their amusement but never consulted an engineer. On
May 31, 1889 the dam burst sending a 40 foot high wall of water (similar to a tsunami) southward through the valley and into the city of about 30,000 killing 2,209. The above images should give an idea of it's force. The industrialists were never held liable for the disaster.
There were silent movies and a few documentaries on the flood (one winning an Oscar in 1990) but as far as I know nothing like the attention paid to the Titanic (making it a great moneymaker for James Cameron and others). Seldom is there a mention of it in biographies of Andrew Carnegie or Frick.