Great Chicago Fire begins
On October 8, 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless and causes an estimated $200 million (in 1871 dollars; roughly $4 billion in 2020 dollars) in damages.
Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O’Leary barn and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four square miles of the Windy City, including its business district, in ruins. Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire. The city averaged two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires throughout Chicago the week before the Great Fire of 1871.
Despite the fire’s devastation, much of Chicago’s physical infrastructure, including its water, sewage and transportation systems, remained intact. Reconstruction efforts began quickly and spurred great economic development and population growth, as architects laid the foundation for a modern city featuring the world’s first skyscrapers. At the time of the fire, Chicago’s population was approximately 324,000; within nine years, there were 500,000 Chicagoans. By 1893, the city was a major economic and transportation hub with an estimated population of 1.5 million. That same year, Chicago was chosen to host the World’s Columbian Exposition, a major tourist attraction visited by 27.5 million people, or approximately half the U.S. population at the time.
In 1997, the Chicago City Council exonerated Mrs. O’Leary and her cow. She turned into a recluse after the fire, and died in 1895.
21ST CENTURY
2001
The Office of Homeland Security is founded
The Office of Homeland Security is founded on October 8, 2001, less than one month after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Now a cabinet department, Homeland Security is now one of the largest organs of the federal government, charged with preventing terror attacks.
INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
2014
First person in U.S. diagnosed with Ebola dies
On October 8, 2014, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with a case of the Ebola Virus Disease in the U.S., dies at age 42 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Shortly before his death, Duncan, who lived in Liberia, had traveled to America from West Africa.
CRIME
2009
Self-help guru’s sweat lodge ceremony turns deadly
On October 8, 2009, two people die and more than a dozen others are hospitalized following a botched sweat lodge ceremony at a retreat run by motivational speaker and author James Arthur Ray near Sedona, Arizona. A third participant in the ceremony died nine days later.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1957
Jerry Lee Lewis records “Great Balls Of Fire” in Memphis, Tennessee
Jerry Lee Lewis was not the only early rock-and-roller from a strict Christian background who struggled to reconcile his religious beliefs with the moral implications of the music he created. He may have been the only one to have one of his religious crises caught on tape.
LATIN AMERICA
1967
Che Guevara captured by Bolivian army
A Bolivian guerrilla force led by Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is defeated in a skirmish with a special detachment of the Bolivian army. Guevara was wounded, captured and executed the next day. Born in Argentina.
VIETNAM WAR
1970
Communists reject Nixon’s peace proposal
The Communist delegation in Paris rejects President Richard Nixon’s October 7 proposal as “a maneuver to deceive world opinion.” Nixon had announced five-point proposal to end the war, based on a “standstill” cease-fire in place in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1871
Massive fire burns in Wisconsin
The most devastating fire in United States history burns in Wisconsin on October 8, 1871. Some 1,200 people lost their lives and 2 billion trees were consumed by flames. Despite the massive scale of the blaze, it was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1970
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize in literature
One of Russia's best-known contemporary writers, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in 1918 in the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn was a leading writer and critic of Soviet internal oppression. Arrested in 1945 for criticizing the Stalin regime.
WORLD WAR I
1918
U.S. soldier Alvin York displays heroics at Argonne
On October 8, 1918, United States Corporal Alvin C. York reportedly kills over 20 German soldiers and captures an additional 132 at the head of a small detachment in the Argonne Forest near the Meuse River in France. The exploits later earned York the Medal of Honor.
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