Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Edmund Spenser
Bummer January 13th
January 13, 1908: One hundred seventy-one people die as a result of a fire that started during the intermission of a stage play at Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. The audience was in its seats to watch a Magic Lantern show. A Magic Lantern machine was a technology somewhat in between a slide show and a movie projector, with slide-like images that gradually faded into the next image.
The gases used to run the Magic Lantern caught fire after someone knocked over one of the kerosene lamps being used to light the stage. The dead include 170 audience members and one firefighter killed while responding. This tragedy spurs the Pennsylvania state legislature to pass a variety of safety laws governing indoor public spaces.
Incidentally, the playwright of the drama being performed was Harriet Earhart Monroe. Mrs. Monroe was not present, but her sister Della Earhart Meyers was on stage as the narrator or chorus of the drama. Della Earhart Myers was among those who perished. Harriet and Della were the sisters of Samuel Stanton Earhart, who was the father of aviator Amelia Earhart.
January 13, 1985: Actor Carol Wayne, perhaps best remembered by American tv viewers as the Matinee Lady on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, dies of an apparently accidental drowning after walking by herself along the beach. Wayne is visiting Manzanillo, Mexico, with a companion. The two argue and Wayne goes for a walk by herself. Her body is found by a fisherman three days later.
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