Podcast: How the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet (almost) destroyed civilisation

In this episode of the Radio Astronomy podcast, we speak to historian Richard Goodrich, whose new book Comet Madness explores the effect on the general public of the build-up to the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet.

Egged on by some rather unscrupulous media outlets at the time, many unsuspecting members of the public were led to believe that Halley's Comet's close pass of Earth could cause mass extinction events, or even the very destruction of Earth as we know it.

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