# Today in History



## mark handler

*1980: MGM Grand fire
Fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino killed 85 in Las Vegas. It is one of the worst hotel fires in American history. It was started by electric ground fault behind a wall near the serving station. The vibration of the rotating cabinet had caused the wiring to fray and the wires rubbed together. The fire began there and burned for a while, undetected.*


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## ADAguy

Only by "deaths" will codes be changed, a sobering thought.


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## mark handler

ADAguy said:


> Only by "deaths" will codes be changed, a sobering thought.


They change, but without deaths, they change with more objections and whining.


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## ADAguy

And "monetery loss by insurance companies" That is what created fire sprinklers.


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## fatboy

End of the day..........deaths drive substantial code changes. 

Hopefully we have it figured out.


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## steveray

And this is why we have finish ratings too...

The fire spread to the lobby, fed by wallpaper, PVC piping, glue, and plastic mirrors, racing through the casino floor at a speed of 15–19 ft/s (4.6–5.8 m/s; 10–13 mph; 16–21 km/h) until a massive fireball blew out the main entrance along The Strip.

How fast do you run?


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## mark handler

The Nov 25th 1978 Holiday Inn Fire broke out at the Holiday Inn-Northwest which was located at 1525 West Ridge Road in the Town of Greece, near Rochester, New York, on November 26, 1978, and killed ten people. Seven of the fatalities were Canadian; 88 Canadians were staying in the hotel at the time on a holiday shopping trip. The fire was considered notable enough by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and The Center for Fire Research to document the fire in their 1979 publications. In the end, 10 people were killed and 34 injured.* In 2008, the NFPA listed the 1978 Holiday Inn Fire as one of only three dozen or so fires which killed 10 or more people in the United States between 1934 and 2006. *
The building was built in 1963 at a cost of $1.3 million and consisted of a wood frame structure with interior hallways and 91 rooms. *The building had passed a fire inspection earlier in the month.* The fire started on the first floor between the north and west wings of the hotel around 2:30 am. Cleaning supplies and paper products were stored in a closet near the fire's point of origin. Due to fire doors being left opened and the nearby combustible materials, the fire spread very rapidly. The fire alarm system was not tied to a dispatch center and although some people reported a bell ringing, they failed to realize it was the emergency alarm bell. The fire was not reported to the fire department until 2:38 am when an off duty firefighter passing by reported it. The fire burned out of control for more than two hours. One hundred and twenty-five firefighters from six area fire companies responded. About 170 people were rescued from the building by firefighters and passers-by.  The fire was declared under control at 4:34 a.m. with an ultimate toll of 10 dead—eight women and two men—and 34 injured. Investigators said the fire broke windows in the hallways connecting the motel's two wings. Flames shot up to the roofs of both wings and swept through an open area between the room's ceilings and roofs. Firewalls in the buildings did not extend to the roof, allowing the fire to rip through the top floor of each wing. The burning roof had collapsed into the top floor rooms.

Investigation.
Initially, the police did not consider the fire suspicious. Questions arose about whether or not the fire alarms could be heard in the lobby of the hotel when firefighters arrived. *While hotel officials said the alarms were functioning, firefighters first at the scene said they were unable to hear the bells.* Although the building met existing fire codes,* it lacked some fire prevention equipment including smoke detectors and a sprinkler system.* Additionally, the *fire alarm system was not connected to the Greece-Ridge Fire Department or any other security agency*, and there was only one vertical fire wall between the two wings. The alarm system consisted only of one bell in the middle of each of the two wings. John Stickevers, an expert fire investigator from New York City, was brought in to assist with the investigation. He discovered that an uncommon highly flammable liquid accelerant was used to start the fire inside a storage cupboard under the first floor stairwell.  The fire was officially ruled as an arson attack.
In early 2011, the Greece Police Department launched the most intensive investigation of the fire in the last thirty years. On November 26, 2014, police announced that they have identified a suspect for the first time, 36 years after the fire. In 2018, it was reported that the investigation had been narrowed down to two suspects but disagreements between Greece Police and the Monroe County District Attorney on which suspect is responsible and over proof of arson have stalled the investigation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Holiday_Inn_fire


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## mark handler

Nov 27th 1910: New York's Pennsylvania Station opens
Designed by architects McKim, Mead and White, the Pennsylvania station also known as the Penn Station, was opened to public after nine years of construction.


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## ADAguy

"9" years! pre CM! talk about a delay claim. Then again it was a Public Works Project.


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## TheCommish

November 28, 1942  https://idighardware.com/2019/11/nfpa-learn-something-new-cocoanut-grove/
a day that changed codes forever


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## mark handler

TheCommish said:


> November 28, 1942  https://idighardware.com/2019/11/nfpa-learn-something-new-cocoanut-grove/
> a day that changed codes forever



You beat me to it

Case Histories: Fires Influencing the  Life Safety Code.
https://www.nfpa.org/~/media/Files/forms and premiums/101 handbook/NFP101HB09_CHS1.pdf


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## mark handler

Must see vid


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## jar546

mark handler said:


> Must see vid


Lessons learned


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## mark handler

Fire destroys the Crystal Palace
The Victorian masterpiece was burned to the ground on November 29th, 1936. 
Richard Cavendish



Crystal Palace, November 30th, 1936
The original Crystal Palace was the centrepiece of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. Built in what is now Kensington Gardens, it was an astonishing prefabricated construction, created on parkland and still with many trees inside. Masterfully designed in glass, iron and wood by the architect Joseph Paxton, it wowed thousands of visitors to the exhibition from this country and all over the world and there could hardly have been a more effective demonstration of advanced British technology. 
When the exhibition closed the following year, Sir Joseph Paxton, as he now was, pointed out that the building could be taken to pieces again and moved somewhere else. At his suggestion, it was dismantled and taken to the village of Sydenham in Kent. Paxton organised the financing and ran the whole operation and the palace was recreated, even larger than before and topped by an imposing Moorish dome, in open parkland on a hilltop from which it could be seen for miles around. 
Formally opened by Queen Victoria, the work was completed in 1854 with gardens and trees, fountains, a maze, lifesize figures of dinosaurs, which attracted particular attention, and statues that would later include a bust of Paxton, who died in 1865, aged 61, by then a man-mountain so huge he could only be moved by wheelchair. All sorts of events were held there, including firework displays, cat and dog shows, cricket and football matches. A one-off Olympic Games was staged there in 1866. Crystal Palace now had its own railway station and Sydenham developed into a prosperous London suburb.
On a November evening in 1936 a local was walking his dog past the building when he saw flames inside. Hurrying in, with the dog, he found two nightwatchmen vainly trying to extinguish what had started as a small fire but was being fanned by a rising wind. He called the fire brigade, which arrived about 8pm, found it could not cope and summoned help. Hundreds more firemen reached the scene, with more than 80 fire engines from Kent and parts of London.
Every effort was made to put the flames out, but they grew stronger and were accompanied by clouds of sparks and fierce explosions. Thousands of people flocked to watch, on foot or by bicycle, car and van, with special trains put on from towns in Kent and even a few private aeroplanes flying enquiringly overhead. Mounted police did their best to control the spectators, but they seriously hindered the fire fighters, as well as causing damage to local people’s properties. When morning came most of Paxton’s masterpiece had been reduced to twisted metal and heaps of ash.   
No lives were lost and just how the fire had begun was never established. Rival theories attributed it to a cigarette left burning that ignited wooden flooring, or to deliberate sabotage by a disgruntled worker or some sort of extremist. John Logie Baird, the television pioneer who had a workshop in the building, traced the fire to some gas cylinders that he discovered had been delivered to his staff late and left with a watchman. Baird thought one of the cylinders might have been leaking gas, which could have been ignited by the watchman’s gas ring and caused all the other cylinders to blow up like a bomb going off.
Crystal Palace Park has survived to this day and is now in the London borough of Bromley. It is home to the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, which opened in 1964, with an athletics stadium which had been the home ground of Crystal Palace Football Club from 1906. The FA Cup Final was played there in most years between 1895 and 1914. The maze was repaired in the 1980s and flights of steps with figures of sphinxes mark the one-time Italian Terraces. The life-size figures of dinosaurs created in the 1850s were made by the sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins on the best scientific advice then available. They are no longer considered entirely accurate, but they are a riveting sight. They fell gradually into disrepair and were sometimes damaged by vandals. An expensive refurbishment began in 2002 and is still continuing
All sorts of suggestions for developing Crystal Palace Park have been made in recent years, often arousing considerable local opposition. They have included building houses and flats on part of the park, new landscaping, a skate park and a new cafe. In 2013 a Chinese developer proposed to recreate Paxton’s original building. The future is uncertain and  looks likely to remain so.


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## mark handler

Nov 30, 2018 Anchorage earthquake
Severe damage to several buildings and a highway overpass near Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was reported.
There were no fatalities, but at least 117 people were injured, mostly for minor injuries such as cuts, bruises or anxiety.
Many suffered broken bones.
Landings at three airports were temporarily affected by the earthquakee across the city.
Liquefaction was reported.
Many roads were also damaged.
Overall, damage in Anchorage was estimated to be at least US $30 million, including $10 million to repair pipes, and $10 million in public facilities.
Damage estimates to the Anchorage School District ranged from $25 to $50 million.


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## mark handler

On December 2, 2016, at approximately 11:20 p.m. PST, a fire broke out in a former warehouse that had been converted into an artist collective with living spaces known as Ghost Ship. At the time, the warehouse in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California, was hosting a concert featuring artists from the house music record label 100% Silk. The warehouse was only permitted for industrial purposes. Residential and entertainment uses were illegal


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## mark handler

December . 03 1984
Toxic gas leaks from a Union Carbide plant and results in the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India.


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## mark handler

The Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire began on December 3, 1999, in a 93-year-old abandoned building at 266 Franklin Street, Worcester, Massachusetts. The fire was started accidentally some time between 4:30–5:45 pm by two homeless people (Thomas Levesque and Julie Ann Barnes) who were squatting in the building and had knocked over a candle. They left the scene without reporting the fire. The 6-story building, previously used as a meat cold storage facility, had no windows above the ground floor and no fire detection or suppression systems. The fire, which started on the second story, burned undetected for 30–90 minutes...
The six-story building's exterior walls were constructed of approximately 18 inches of brick and mortar, with no windows above the second floor.
The lack of available windows prevented firefighting personnel from making an accurate initial assessment of the fire. Initial breaching of lower-floor doors, combined with venting the building by smashing an elevator-shaft roof skylight, effectively turned the building into a huge chimney.
With the fire rapidly accelerating out of control, rescue teams facing near-zero visibility became lost with available breathing air depleted.
Despite repeated radio calls for help, along with activation of audible location alarms, six firefighters perished in the blaze.
*It took eight days to find and recover the remains of the six men.*


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## my250r11

mark handler said:


> The Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire began on December 3, 1999, in a 93-year-old abandoned building at 266 Franklin Street, Worcester, Massachusetts. The fire was started accidentally some time between 4:30–5:45 pm by two homeless people (Thomas Levesque and Julie Ann Barnes) who were squatting in the building and had knocked over a candle. They left the scene without reporting the fire. The 6-story building, previously used as a meat cold storage facility, had no windows above the ground floor and no fire detection or suppression systems. The fire, which started on the second story, burned undetected for 30–90 minutes...
> The six-story building's exterior walls were constructed of approximately 18 inches of brick and mortar, with no windows above the second floor.
> The lack of available windows prevented firefighting personnel from making an accurate initial assessment of the fire. Initial breaching of lower-floor doors, combined with venting the building by smashing an elevator-shaft roof skylight, effectively turned the building into a huge chimney.
> With the fire rapidly accelerating out of control, rescue teams facing near-zero visibility became lost with available breathing air depleted.
> Despite repeated radio calls for help, along with activation of audible location alarms, six firefighters perished in the blaze.
> *It took eight days to find and recover the remains of the six men.*




Very sad story.


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## TheCommish

Should be a good series, produced by Denis Leary who is a Worcester native, took up the cause shortly after the fire linked here. I am from the area and a member of my town's FD, we assisted and will continue to assist our neighbors  at all times.


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## mark handler

December 05 1876
Hundreds die in Brooklyn theater fire
A fire at the Brooklyn Theater in New York kills nearly 300 people and injures hundreds more on December 5, 1876. Some victims perished from a combination of burns and smoke inhalation; others were trampled to death in the general panic that ensued.
The play The Two Orphans starring Harry S. Murdock and Kate Claxton was showing at the Brooklyn Theater on the night of December 5. The theater, built five years earlier at the corner of Johnson and Washington streets, was very popular at the time and all 900 seats were filled. Sometime near the start of the performance, a gas light ignited some extra scenery stored in the fly space behind the stage. It wasn’t until midway through the play that stagehands noticed the quickly spreading flames. Unfortunately, there were no fire hoses or water buckets at hand and the fire spread, unbeknownst to the cast and audience.
Finally, someone shouted “Fire!” and despite Murdock’s best attempt to calm the crowd, bedlam ensued, particularly in the balcony and rear of the theater. A narrow staircase was the only the exit from the balcony (there were no fire escapes) and panic resulted in a stampede in which many were crushed and others remained trapped. Meanwhile, the fire grew out of control. Witnesses saw Murdock return to the dressing room to change clothes; he then tried to wiggle out of a small window. He couldn’t get through, and died when the floor gave way and he fell to the basement.
By the time firefighters arrived it was too late for hundreds of people. The fire raged through the night and destroyed nearly the entire building. When would-be rescuers were finally able to get in, all they found were bodies melted together. Up to 100 of the victims were burned beyond recognition and could not be identified. A mass grave was set up at the Green-Wood Cemetery. In all, approximately 295 people died. A 30-foot-high granite memorial was later erected in their honor by the city of Brooklyn.


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## mark handler

New York, NY Wall Collapses Into Tenement Building, Dec 05 1946
46 TRAPPED IN TENEMENT FIRE
8 KNOWN DEAD; 38 BURIED UNDER TONS OF DEBRIS.
CRUMBLING WALL CRASHES INTO BUILDING.
New York (AP) -- At least eight persons were dead and 38 others, including children, were believed buried under tons of debris following a five-alarm fire early today in an abandoned icehouse on Manhattan's upper West Side, which caused a five-story wall to collapse, crumpling an adjoining tenement building.
Police and firemen, digging frantically against time, removed four bodies from the wreckage and said they had sighted four more. Nearby hospitals admitted more than a score of injured. Ambulances were rushed to the scene and a first aid station was set up.
The identified dead are FRANK MOOREHEAD, 27-year-old, fireman; ANTHONY BLANCARDI, 11; DANIEL CORRADO, 25; and THOMAS PHILLIPS, 70. All except the fireman were residents of the tenement building.
THOMAS P. BROPHY, fire marshal, said the cause of the fire was not known. A small rubbish fire had been extinguished the day before in the ice plant, located at 484 W. 184th st.
Six children between the ages of four and 12 years old, who had played in the icehouse Wednesday, were questioned by police in an effort to learn whether they might have started the fire.
The noise of the toppling walls caused first reports to list the disaster as an explosion.
The pile of debris from the tenement building was as high as the second story. One portion of the tenement was flattened the other wrecked by the force of the collapse, which virtually sheared the building in half.
Blood plasma units were available at the scene. Priests from a nearby parish clambered over the debris to administer last rites as two derricks bit into the wreckage.
Police pulled from the wreckage JOSEPH POPER, JR.,nine years old. He had cried and shouted until help reached him. He said his brother and sister still were trapped.
NICK SLOAN, 29, also was pulled out alive. He guided rescuers by shouting and throwing stones and rubble. His wife, brother and two little daughters still are missing.
Emergency crews tearing at the wreckage with bars, picks and bare hands came across the pitiful remnants of gaily wrapped Christmas packages, holly and bits of tinsel.
One priest, the REV. DAVID REN, climbed a ladder to reach a broken body and gave last rites. He also saw the legs and feet of two others protruding from the wreckage.
Mayor WILLIAM O'DWYER rushed to the scene and promised an investigation. Crowds watched rescue efforts from nearby rooftops and police roped off nearby streets.
Among those listed as missing were a mother, MRS. EDITH DIRICA, 31 and three children, CHARLES, 12, MARGARET 5, and MARY, six months.
The collapse came 15 minutes after the fire broke out at 12:10 A. M. CHARLES WHITECROFF, nearby resident, said the cavein "felt like an earthquake" and was followed by "terrible screaming of children."
After the collapse, firemen heard frantic cries from the ruins and were able to drag out a number of victims.
DR. HARRY M. ARCHER, Fire Department surgeon, said he had crawled into the rubble and had given a hypodermic injection to a woman who clutched the dead body of a young boy.
The REV. JOSEPH A. BOYLE, Fire Department chaplain, also went into the ruins. He said he heard a woman calling weakly, "Please get me out of here. I'm all right." Firemen worked toward her.
Many of the more than 200 firemen at the scene formed a human chain, passing bricks, wood, masonry and smashed furniture to the street so rescue crews could dig deeper.
One crew of firemen tunneled with their hands through six feet of wreckage to reach a young girl, still alive. She was given a hypodermic injection. A fireman wept with relief as he carried to safety a small boy who was still able to smile, though injured.
Syracuse Herald-Journal New York 1946-12-12
---------------------------------
ABANDON HOPE FOR 15 BURIED
STEAM SHOVELS CLEAN DEBRIS.
New York (AP) -- Weary workers who dug the bodies of 21 persons from the wreckage of a collapsed, tenement house in a slow, grim procession of death gave up hope today for the lives of 15 others believed buried under tons of rubble.
As the broken body of ROSE FUCCI, 15, was extricated from the ruins, police said they planned to set three steam shovels to work on the ruins of the building in which more than 30 were injured. Workers had previously carefully dug by hand because they feared heavy machinery would cause more crashes.
The building at 2515 Amsterdam ave. in upper Manhattan, which housed 22 families, was smashed early thursday by a two-foot thick wall of an adjoining ice house which toppled on it after a five-alarm fire in the ice house.
Rescue workers toiled all night in the glare of huge searchlights which played over the six-story structure's gaunt remains.
Continued on http://www.gendisasters.com/new-yor...ollapses-tenement-building,-dec-1946?page=0,1


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## TheCommish

December 6, 1907, 
*The Monongah coal mine disaster kills 361*
In West Virginia’s Marion County, an explosion in a network of mines owned by the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah kills 361 coal miners. It was the worst mining disaster in American history.

Citation linked here


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## mark handler

Investigation of the December 6, 2007 Fatal Parking Garage Collapse
at Berkman Plaza 2 in Jacksonville, FL
On December 6, 2007 at approximately 6:15 a.m. an incident occurred during the construction of a five-story concrete parking garage in downtown Jacksonville, FL. The location is 500 East Bay Street, Jacksonville, FL. One construction employee was killed and twenty-one were injured. The incident occurred when the 6th parking level was being cast with fresh concrete.
The Regional Administrator, Region IV, requested the Directorate of Construction (DOC), OSHA National Office, Washington, DC to provide engineering assistance to the Jacksonville Area office. A structural engineer visited the incident site and examined the failed structure on December 11, 2007. The same structural engineer made a subsequent visit to the site on January 8, 2008.
Subsequently, DOC investigated the incident, analyzed the structure for the design loads and for to the construction loads placed at the time that the 6th level was being cast. This document includes the report and the conclusions reached.
The garage is a poured-in-place concrete structure measuring approximately 116 ft. x 252 ft. There was no basement in the garage and it consisted of six levels including the ground level, called the 1st level. The roof was the 6th level and was designed for parking as well. The parking garage was a part of a bigger project, a 23-story condominium tower, called Berkman Plaza II. Structurally, the parking garage is a separate structure from the tower. The structure design consisted of cast-in-place one way continuous post-tensioned slabs in the north-south direction and post-tensioned beams in the east-west direction. The columns were also cast in place. There were seven bays in the north-south direction and two in the east-west direction. The bays were unequal and, therefore, the thickness of the slabs varied. The lateral load-resisting system consisted of cast-in-place shear walls enclosing the stairwells and some additional shear walls on the north side. See Fig. 1 for a typical plan of the garage. For the purpose of his report, the prefix "G", meaning garage, has been omitted for identifying column grid lines.
https://www.osha.gov/doc/engineering/2007_12_06.html


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## mark handler

Dec. 6 1884 - The construction of the Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers. The project took 34 years


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## my250r11

Isn't this the one they say is still burning?



TheCommish said:


> December 6, 1907,
> *The Monongah coal mine disaster kills 361*
> In West Virginia’s Marion County, an explosion in a network of mines owned by the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah kills 361 coal miners. It was the worst mining disaster in American history.
> 
> Citation linked here


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## mark handler

my250r11 said:


> Isn't this the one they say is still burning?


You may be thinking of this one
The Centralia mine fire is a coal-seam fire that has been burning underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. The original cause of the fire is still a matter of debate.


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## fatboy

Thanks for posting these Mark.........mostly sad, but interesting.

I did not realize the Washington Monument was that old.


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## Glenn

The hardest video on this subject I have ever seen is one on youtube about the Station Nightclub.  It's not a fancy video.  It's raw footage of someone that made it out.  Video starts inside as this person exits early and then it continues horribly from there.

It's just plain horrible, but everyone should watch it at least once.  Everyone.  Not for entertainment, but for awareness of how fast things can go sour.


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## mark handler

Dec 7 1946: Fire engulfs Winecoff Hotel
Fire broke out at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, killing 119 people, including hotel founder W. Frank Winecoff. Advertised as "absolutely fireproof", the Winecoff was a 15-story hotel downtown Atlanta, originally constructed in 1912. Of the 304 guests in the hotel that night, 119 died, about 65 were injured and about 120 were rescued uninjured.


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## TheCommish

Glenn said:


> The hardest video on this subject I have ever seen is one on youtube about the Station Nightclub.  It's not a fancy video.  It's raw footage of someone that made it out.  Video starts inside as this person exits early and then it continues horribly from there.
> 
> It's just plain horrible, but everyone should watch it at least once.  Everyone.  Not for entertainment, but for awareness of how fast things can go sour.


The video was shot by cameraman Brian Butler, a Providence new station videographer doing a story on nigh club safety.

I recommend anyone in the coe enforce  profession read this book;

*John Barylick*, "Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert."


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## TheCommish

DECEMBER 22, 1910 - CHICAGO, IL 21 Firefighters Killed.

On December 22, 1910, The Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire resulted in the deaths of 21 firefighters, which until September 11, 2001 was the largest single instance of firefighter line of duty deaths in the United States.

It was 24 degrees outside at 4 a.m. on Dec. 22, 1910, the first full day of winter. In the unlit basement of a packing house in the Union Stock Yards, that coal-black cold was being replaced by the glow of sparking wires, and then the first flames of a fire fed by combustibles ranging from rags to raw meat.
Within little more than an hour, that fire would grow to engulf warehouse No. 7 of the Morris & Co. plant. Then, in a few horrendous seconds, it would turn the nearly windowless brick building at 44th and Loomis streets from just another meat-packing operation into a graveyard.

Until the collapse of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, no single disaster in the history of the United States claimed the lives of more firefighters.

Credit through Roy Liard Jr.  to Facebook group Fire Service Line of Duty Deaths linked here


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## TheCommish

Italian Hall Disaster” of December 24, 1913.


It’s oft-repeated that, in spite of our freedom of speech, one still can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded room. For a chilling illustration, look no further than the event known as the “Italian Hall Disaster” of December 1913.

Calumet’s Italian Hall was a two-story building with a single steep stairway leading to the second floor. Hundreds of partygoers gathered upstairs to eat, drink, and be merry that night. What exactly happened next is uncertain. Someone yelled, “fire!” into the crowded room, likely from the foot of the stairs, even though there was no fire.

Revelers rushed to escape the apparent blaze. Seventy-three people—59 of them children—died in the ensuing stampede. They were either trampled underfoot suffocated in the crush of bodies.

source material linked here


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## mark handler

Mar. 10 1933: Long Beach earthquake
An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.3 struck Southern California, U.S. With its epicenter in Long Beach, it resulted in the death of more than 115 people and severely damaged buildings throughout the region


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## TheCommish

New London Consolidated School explosion
March 18, 1937


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## mark handler

March 17th 1909 - Taiwan Earthquake
A powerful earthquake and aftershocks rock Taiwan , killing over 1,200 people.
The 1909 April 14 Taiwan earthquake caused significant damage in Taipei. Most of the information on this earthquake available until now is from the written reports on its macro-seismic effects and from seismic station bulletins. In view of the importance of this event for assessing the shaking hazard in the present-day Taipei, we collected historical seismograms and station bulletins of this event and investigated them in conjunction with other seismological data. We compared the observed seismograms with those from recent earthquakes in similar tectonic environments to characterize the 1909 earthquake. Despite the inevitably large uncertainties associated with old data, we conclude that the 1909 Taipei earthquake is a relatively deep (50–100 km) intraplate earthquake that occurred within the subducting Philippine Sea Plate beneath Taipei with an estimated MW of 7 ± 0.3. Some intraplate events elsewhere in the world are enriched in high-frequency energy and the resulting ground motions can be very strong. Thus, despite its relatively large depth and a moderately large magnitude, it would be prudent to review the safety of the existing structures in Taipei against large intraplate earthquakes like the 1909 Taipei earthquake.


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## mark handler

TheCommish said:


> New London Consolidated School explosion
> March 18, 1937


Sad


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## TheCommish

Triangle Shirtwaste Fire,146 Dead, ​ March 25, 1911​Happy Land Social Club Fire 87 dead ​ March 25, 1990, 

history repeats, both  stairway  issues


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## mark handler

*March 30th- not construction related*


*1822: Florida becomes a US territory*
The Territory of Florida was an organized incorporated territory of the United States between March 30, 1822 and March 3, 1845. On March 3, 1845 it was admitted to the Union as the State of Florida.
*1867: Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million*
U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, under President Andrew Johnson, signed a treaty with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million. The deal’s detractors in Congress took to calling it “Seward’s folly,” “Seward’s icebox” and “Johnson’s polar bear garden.”
*1870: The Fifteenth Amendment is adopted*
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, is declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
*1965: Explosion in front of the US Embassy in Vietnam*
22 people were killed while more than 180 were injured after a bomb in a car parked outside the U.S. Embassy exploded, in Saigon, Vietnam. The explosion destroyed almost the entire building.
*1981: Assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan*
John Hinckley Jr. shot the U.S. president in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel, where he addressed a labor meeting. Hinckley fired six shots that hit Reagan, White House Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahaney. Reagan survived the assassination after a two-hour surgery.
*2017: Atlanta's Interstate 85 bridge collapses*
A bridge on Interstate 85 interstate highway in Atlanta, Georgia collapsed after a massive fire erupted during evening rush hours. Commuters were stuck for hours during the evening rush before they were redirected by the transport officials which also prevented any loss of life or injury. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for Atlanta and Fulton County later that night.


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## TheCommish

*Rhythm Club Fire*

April 23, 1940

Source linked here

Each year, on March 25th, historians and journalists mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 that resulted in the deaths of 145 immigrant women in New York City. The calamity is an object lesson in the histories of immigration, women’s lives, labor conditions, and safety hazards. It is regularly taught in undergraduate survey courses in American history, and rightly so.

Nearly three decades after the Triangle Shirtwaist blaze, another fire claimed even more lives. Known as the Rhythm Club Fire, it occurred in the small town of Natchez, Mississippi, on April 23, 1940. Those who died in the Rhythm Club dance hall in Natchez were all African American; however, except for case studies written by firefighters who rank it as the fourth deadliest club fire in the history of the country, this tragedy is barely known to the American public.


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