On October 8, 1871, flames sparked 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 2021 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.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

The original Instrument of Surrender of Japan’s surrender to the
Allied Forces in World War II is shown at an exhibition held by
the Japanese Foreign Ministry,

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 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.

President James Madison and wife Dolly.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996)