5 stories from this place.
At approximately 12:30 on 15 January 1919 a steel tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses ruptured in Boston's North End. The wave — estimated at 25 feet high, moving at 35 mph — killed 21 people, injured 150, and levelled buildings along Commercial Street.
Read the story →Boston's most famous nightclub was packed to perhaps double capacity when fire flashed through its paper-palm tropical décor on 28 November 1942. The main exit was a revolving door that jammed with bodies; other exits were locked or hidden. 492 died in about fifteen minutes — and American fire codes, burn medicine, and the deployment of penicillin were changed by the night.
Read the story →Between February 1692 and May 1693 the Salem Massachusetts witchcraft proceedings investigated 200 accused witches and executed 20 — 14 women and six men. Five more died in prison awaiting trial. The court accepted "spectral evidence" — the testimony of accusers who claimed to see the accused's spirit form harming them — over the explicit objection of senior Massachusetts clergy. The legal foundation collapsed in autumn 1692 and the colony issued a formal apology in 1697.
Read the story →Every November, Nova Scotia cuts down a 45-foot white spruce and ships it to Boston Common. The tradition is a thank-you for a relief train that arrived in 1917.
Read the story →On 6 December 1917, Vince Coleman had ninety seconds to warn the incoming trains. He used them, and then he was gone.
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