The Our Lady of Angels School was operated by the Sisters of Charity in
Chicago. In 1958, there were well over 1,200 students enrolled at the school,
which occupied a large, old building. Unfortunately, little in the way of fire prevention was done before December 1958. The building did not have any sprinklers and no regular preparatory drills were conducted. When a small
fire broke out in a pile of trash in the basement, it led to disaster on this
day in 1958.

The fire probably began about 2:30 p.m. and, within minutes, teachers on
the first floor smelled it. These teachers led their classes outside, but did
not sound a general alarm. The school’s janitor discovered the fire at 2:42
and shouted for the alarm to be rung. However, he was either not heard or
the alarm system did not operate properly, and the students in classrooms
on the second floor were completely unaware of the rapidly spreading
flames beneath them.

It took only a few more minutes for the fire to reach the second floor where
panic ensued.

When the fire was finally extinguished several hours later, the authorities
found that 90 students and 3 nuns had been killed in the fire.

Panicked parents raced to Our Lady of the Angels from all over
the city, and the police soon had to set up barriers to restrain
the anxious crowd of about 5,000 parents and onlookers.

Officials inspect a classroom after the 1958 fire at Our Lady of the
Angels School.

  
Under federal troop escort, the Little Rock Nine were escorted back
into Central High School for their first full day of classes. 
 

Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black
students entered an all-white High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Three
weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the
school with National Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered
racial integration. After a tense standoff, President Dwight Eisenhower
federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army troops
to Little Rock to enforce the court order.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivering a special broadcast on
the Little Rock situation.

Aladdin is a brand, over 100 years old, made popular for its
line of character lunchboxes including Hopalong Cassady,
Superman, Mickey Mouse and The Jetsons. Today Aladdin
continues to be a food and beverage products brand and
is owned by Pacific Market International, LLC of Seattle,
Washington.

On August 23, 1902, pioneering cookbook author Fannie Farmer, who
changed the way Americans prepare food by advocating the use of
standardized measurements in recipes, opened Miss Farmer’s School
of Cookery in Boston. In addition to teaching women about cooking,
Farmer later educated medical professionals about the importance
of proper nutrition for the sick.       
      
     

Fannie Merritt Farmer (March 23, 1857 – January 16, 1915)

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

The Columbine High School massacre was a mass shooting that  occurred on this day in 1999, at Columbine High School in
Columbine, Colorado.The perpetrators, twelfth grade (senior)
students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students
and one teacher and injured 21 additional people trying to escape
the school building. Ten students were killed in the library, where 
the pair subsequently committed suicide. At the time, it was the 
deadliest shooting at a high school in United States history.

Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) recorded on the high
school’s surveillance cameras in the cafeteria, 11 minutes before
their suicides.