The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things

On the last morning before half term, 240 children walked into Pantglas Junior School beneath a mountain of coal waste. Minutes after lessons began, Tip 7 collapsed above Aberfan, sending liquefied spoil through homes and classrooms and killing 116 children and 28 adults.

But the Aberfan disaster did not begin with the slide, and it did not end when the rescue stopped. The warning signs had been there: natural springs beneath the tip, earlier slips on the mountainside and concerns that failed to produce action. The tribunal later placed responsibility on the National Coal Board and concluded that the disaster could and should have been prevented.

Told through the experiences of survivors including Phil Thomas, Karen Thomas, Jeff Edwards and Gerald Tarr, this is a story of rescue, grief, institutional failure and the lives shaped by what happened on 21 October 1966. It also follows the fight to remove the remaining tips, the controversy surrounding the disaster fund and the long silence that made healing even harder.

Topics Included

The final morning at Pantglas Junior School

Why water beneath Tip 7 triggered the collapse

The warnings and earlier slides on Mynydd Merthyr

The children and teachers trapped inside the school

The rescue effort and its system of whistles and silence

The tribunal's findings against the National Coal Board

The compensation and disaster-fund controversies

The lasting trauma carried by survivors and families

Resources

The Aberfan Tribunal — Glamorgan Archives

Aberfan Disaster 1966 — National Library of Wales digital archive

The Aberfan Disaster, 1966 — British Geological Survey case study

Aberfan Disaster: Lessons Learned — Institution of Civil Engineers explainer

Aberfan: No End of a Lesson — History & Policy research paper

Aberfan Disaster Debate, 26 October 1967 — UK Parliament Hansard

Death of a Black Mountain: How the Aberfan Disaster Unfolded — HistoryExtra survivor history

The Psychological Effects of the Aberfan Disaster — 33-year follow-up study

Guidance to the Disused Tips Authority for Wales — Welsh Government consultation

This Year Marks the 60th Anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster — Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
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A trillion-dollar company. Two women who worked inside it, years apart. And the exact same warnings, ignored twice.

 

This episode traces Frances Haugen, the Facebook product manager who walked out with a phone full of leaked documents and wiped six billion dollars off the company's share price in a single day, and Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook's former global policy chief, whose tell-all memoir Careless People landed her in emergency arbitration and a gag order so strict she's legally barred from discussing her own book.

We cover the Instagram research on teenage girls, the Myanmar crisis both women separately flagged, China, Cross-Check, the Capitol riot, and the 2026 courtroom reckoning that's cost Meta over seventeen billion dollars so far.

One whistleblower built a legal shield before she ever spoke. The other found out, too late, exactly how exposed she'd left herself. Coincidence, or exactly the pattern you'd expect from a company this size?

 

Topics Included

Frances Haugen's path from Google and Pinterest to Facebook's Civic Integrity team

The leaked internal research on Instagram's effect on teenage girls' body image

Cross-Check (XCheck) and the rules that didn't apply to Facebook's most powerful users

The Capitol riot, the Facebook Files, and Facebook's rebrand to Meta

Meta's 2026 courtroom reckoning: Section 230, the New Mexico and Los Angeles verdicts, and the $17.1 billion settlement

Sarah Wynn-Williams' six years as Facebook's global policy chief, and the Myanmar and China allegations in her book

The arbitration order and gag order that followed her memoir, Careless People

Arturo Bejar's testimony, and what happened to Meta's stock price after the settlement

Resources and Further Reading

Frances Haugen — Wikipedia

Frances Haugen's Written Testimony – the Senate Commerce Committee

Sarah Wynn-Williams — Wikipedia

Ex-Meta executive: — CNN

Sarah Wynn-Williams accuses Meta of colluding with China — TechCrunch

What the Wall Street Journal Got Wrong — Meta's official response

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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In 1978, a brown-paper parcel was found between two cars at a Chicago university. It looked ordinary. The professor named as the sender had never seen it before. Then it exploded.

That first device began a 17-year bombing campaign that moved from university campuses to an airliner, computer shops and private homes. Sixteen bombs would kill three people and injure 23, while investigators struggled with devices deliberately built from common materials and a bomber capable of disappearing for years.

What the FBI did have was strange: scrap-built components, pieces of wood, the initials F.C., a witness sketch and, eventually, a bomber who decided to start writing. Part One follows the creation of the UNABOM investigation, the long silences between attacks, the deadly return in the 1990s and the extraordinary decision to publish Industrial Society and Its Future.

Then, after thousands of bad tips, one lead arrived that pointed towards a name already inside the investigation: Ted Kaczynski.

Topics Included

The mysterious first package bomb found in Chicago in 1978

How the university and airline attacks gave the UNABOM case its name

The scrap-built bombs, pieces of wood and recurring F.C. signature

The escalation from serious injuries to the first fatalities

The 1987 eyewitness encounter and iconic hooded-man sketch

The Unabomber’s six-year disappearance and sudden return

Freedom Club and the demand to publish Industrial Society and Its Future

The manifesto publication and the tip that pointed towards Ted Kaczynski

Resources and Further Reading

Unabomber case history — FBI

Inside the FBI: The Unabomber Case — FBI podcast and transcript

The Unabomber Case 25 Years Later — FBI

Unabomber Bomb Shrapnel — FBI artifact

Unabomber Cabin — FBI artifact

The Profile of a Loner — The Washington Post

Unabomber's Elusive Trail — The Washington Post

To Unabomb Victims, A Deeper Mystery — The Washington Post

UNABOM Major Case 75 Task Force Report — digitised 1995 BATF, FBI and USPIS task-force report

Project Unabom — Apple Original podcast

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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For 17 years, the Unabomber hid behind handmade bombs, false clues and the initials F.C. Then his need to explain himself gave the FBI the break it had been waiting for.

Part Two turns from the bombing campaign to Ted Kaczynski himself. We trace the gifted, isolated child who entered Harvard at 16, the controversial psychological study led by Henry Murray, the anti-technology ideas that hardened into violent ideology, and the contradictions of his off-grid life in a tiny Montana cabin.

When Industrial Society and Its Future was published, Ted’s brother David recognised something chilling in its language. What followed was a covert investigation, an arrest built around a Forest Service ruse, a cabin packed with evidence and a legal battle over whether any of it could be used. Even with the case closing around him, Kaczynski fought the defence designed to save his life because it threatened the one thing he still wanted the world to respect: his ideas.

Topics Included

Ted Kaczynski’s gifted but socially isolated childhood

Henry Murray’s controversial Harvard psychology study

The private crisis Kaczynski called a turning point in his life

Jacques Ellul and the roots of Kaczynski’s anti-technology ideology

The reality of living off-grid in the Montana cabin

The manifesto and the linguistic clues that exposed him

David Kaczynski’s decision to contact the FBI

The search warrant, mental-health dispute and guilty plea

Resources and Further Reading

Unabomber case history — FBI case archive and device timeline

The Unabomber Case 25 Years Later — FBI account of the linguistic investigation

Theodore Kaczynski Indicted in Sacramento — US Department of Justice indictment summary

Unabomber Cabin — FBI artefact history and cabin evidence

United States v. Kaczynski, 239 F.3d 1108 — Ninth Circuit opinion on the plea and self-representation dispute

The Ted Kaczynski Papers: FBI Files and Photographs — University of Michigan Library archive guide

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber — Alston Chase’s archival investigation

Responses to Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber — participant and scholarly challenges to Chase’s interpretation

Ted Kaczynski dies in federal prison at 81 — Associated Press biography and case overview

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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Aileen Wuornos killed seven men along Florida's highways between 1989 and 1990, but the question at the centre of her story has never been quite as simple as whether she was a serial killer.

Wuornos said her first victim, Richard Mallory, violently attacked and raped her before she shot him in self-defence. She later gave dramatically different accounts of what happened, eventually claiming that robbery, not survival, motivated the killings. Even then, her story continued to shift.

Behind those contradictions was a life already shaped by abandonment, alleged childhood abuse, homelessness, sex work, violence and an intense relationship with Tyria Moore.

We follow Wuornos from her brutal childhood in Michigan through the Florida highway murders, the investigation that finally identified her, Moore's role in obtaining her confession, the trial that sent her to death row, and the questions that remained when she was executed in 2002.

This is the true story behind the woman Charlize Theron portrayed in Monster.

Topics Included

Aileen Wuornos's childhood, abandonment and allegations of abuse

Her relationship with Tyria Moore

Richard Mallory and Wuornos's self-defence claim

Seven killings across Florida between 1989 and 1990

The fingerprint and vehicle evidence that helped identify Wuornos

How Tyria Moore helped police obtain a confession

Wuornos's changing explanations for the murders

Her trial, death row years and execution

Resources and Further Reading

Aileen Wuornos – Wikipedia

Monster (2003) – directed by Patty Jenkins

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003) – directed by Nick Broomfield & Joan Churchill

Monster: My True Story - by Aileen Wuornos & Christopher Berry-Dee

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Suggest a Topic: Freaky Register
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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