Felicity's Mini HIstory Lessons: The Second

Technically, I believe this was the first mini history lesson I wrote up several years ago but since I had to rescue it from the depths of unloved Facebook, it can be the second.

Late last night, when we were all in bed.
Mrs Leary left the lantern in the shed.
And when the cow kicked it over, she winked her eye and said,
"There'll be a hot time, in the old town, tonight!"

The night of October 8th, 1871 was the start of the Great Chicago Fire. It raged for two days and killed up to 300 people and left 100,000 homeless in the booming young city. Due to severe drought and the majority of the homes being built from wood in the "balloon" frame with tar or flammable shingles for a roof as well as wooden sidewalks, the fire did considerable damage in a very short time despite a rapid initial response from the 185 firemen in the city. Contrary to popular belief, it was never determined what started the fire, (the family cow, men gambling after nightfall, or if the fire was related to additional fires throughout the Midwest that day, but the O'Leary barn was the first structure to go up in flames.

A silver lining to the fire? Due to a generous donation from the United Kingdom to help rebuild the city, the Chicago Public Library was established and replaced the previous paid membership libraries before it with a free version open to everyone in the city, which is today the 9th largest library in the United States and holds 5,721,334 volumes of books over 80 locations throughout the city.