Today’s Freshly Varnished Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The steamboat Erie left Buffalo, New York, for Chicago on August 9, 1841 with a fresh coat of paint and varnish on the outside. But inside in its boiler room a disaster was waiting to happen: containers of inflammable turpentine had been stowed there, close to the hot boilers. When the turpentine finally exploded, the ship’s fresh paint and varnish caught fire immediately, spreading the flames in all directions like traces of gunpowder. The ship’s 250-plus passengers desperately tried to escape as the fire engulfed the steamboat. Well over a hundred immigrant passengers crowding the ship’s steerage section were probably trapped there and burned alive. Lifeboats were swamped as other, now hysterical passengers on deck overloaded them. Some of these people were drawn into the still-turning paddle wheels. Others jumped straight into the choppy waters and survived by clinging to pieces of floating debris until help arrived. By then, however, the disaster had killed some 242 people.
Culled from: The Pessimist’s Guide To History