An Iriot original.

I was born with a special gift.

The ability to mentally transform any situation into the worst case scenario.

In my own brain.

My therapist calls my gift catastrophizing.

And that's why I'm uniquely qualified to scrutinize and analyze history's greatest disasters.

And find out who's to blame.

They say history repeats itself.

Not on my watch.

My name is Rebecca Delgado-Smith, and I am the alarmist.

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the alarmist.

A comedy podcast where we talk about history's greatest tragedies and figure out who's to blame.

Today we're discussing the Diet Love Pass Incident.

Here's what you need to know.

After Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union experienced a period of political and cultural growth and liberation known as the Thaw.

Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, introduced a relaxation of rigid controls within the country, including the dismantling of the gulag.

This coincided with a series of technological, foreign, and economic successes for the Soviet Union.

Most notably with the launching of the Earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I.

Riding the wave of national confidence within Soviet society.

In late 1958, 22-year-old engineering student Igor Dietlov began planning an ambitious 16-day, 200-mile, cross-country ski expedition

in the Ural's mountain range, in Western Russia.

His plans were to trek through the traditional territory of the Mansi, an indigenous people who had continued their traditional life of hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding.

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