Summary

“A Tale of Two Princes: The Halifax Explosion and After” begins on December 6, 1917, shortly after 9 a.m. The Imo, a Norwegian ship, plowed into the side of the Mont Blanc just off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, the Mont Blanc was laden with thousands of tons of explosive powder and “highly flammable oil, gun cotton, benzol, and picric acid” (74) headed for Europe. The explosion “lifted the entire six million pounds of the Mont Blanc into the air, “vaporized much of it, and dropped a shower of white-hot shrapnel over Halifax and Dartmouth, the city across the strait” (74). Fire rained down upon Halifax, and people were thrown high in the air while “tens of thousands” of windows blew out. A fire then began to rage through the ruins.

Readers see the utter devastation of the explosion...