What do a 17th-century Swedish warship, an opulent Chicago theater and a Kansas City hotel “skyway” have in common? All met catastrophic ends–and they have important lessons to teach today’s innovators.

Here is a list of the examined examples, along with reference links to Wikipedia (except for the AT&T crash).

• The Vasa sinking
• The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse
• The Iroquois Theater blaze
• The Eschede train derailment
• The Ashtabula Creek Bridge wreck
• The St. Francis Dam burst
• The Atlantic Empress/Aegean Captain collision
• The AT&T network crash
• The 1965 Northeast blackout
• The Concorde crash

We’ll take more in-depth looks at some of these and many other examples in future posts and articles.