ED DANAHUE
Bo Diddley (Ellas Otha Bates)
(December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008)
Bo Diddley played a key role in the transition from
the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists,
including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and the Beatles.
His use of African rhythms and a signature beat, a
simple five-accent hambone rhythm, is a cornerstone
of hip hop, rock, and pop music.
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A fire at a grade school in Chicago killed 87 children and three
nuns on December 1, 1958; five more children later died as a
result of their injuries.
The fire originated in the basement near the foot of a stairway.
The Our Lady of Angels School was operated by the Sisters
of Charity in Chicago.
The disaster led to major improvements in standards for school
design and fire safety codes.
School memorial.
On November 8, 1962, the famous Ford Rotunda stood in
Dearborn, Michigan for the last time: the next day, it is
destroyed in a massive fire. Some 1.5 million people
visited the Rotunda each year, making it the fifth most
popular tourist attraction in the U.S. (behind Niagara Falls,
Smokey Mountain National Park, the Smithsonian, and the
Lincoln Memorial).
Ford had commissioned the Rotunda for the 1933 Century
of Progress exposition in Chicago and had moved it to
Dearborn when the fair ended.
Christmas exhibit at Ford Rotunda, December 1955.
On October 8, 1871, flames sparked in the Chicago barn of
Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that
killed between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings,
left 100,000 homeless and caused an estimated $200 million
(in 1871 dollars; more than $4 billion today) 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.
On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 between the United
States and England, British troops entered Washington, D.C.
and burned the White House in retaliation for the American
attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June 1813.
When the British arrived at the White House, they found that
President James Madison and his first lady Dolley (below)
had already fled to safety in Maryland.
Soldiers reportedly sat down to eat a meal made of leftover
food from the White House scullery using White House
dishes and silver before ransacking the presidential
mansion and setting it ablaze.
