Costly Historic Mistakes That People Immediately Regretted

Rivers of Burning Booze

Sometime around 8PM on the night of June 18^th, 1875, fire was detected at a liquor warehouse. Whiskey is highly flammable, and before long, the whole place was a raging inferno, as whiskey barrels burst and their contents further fueled the blaze. As The Irish Examiner put it: “The burning whiskey poured literally in torrents from the doors and windows of the burning pile, and rushed down Mill-street and the other streets of the locality in flaming and lava like streams“. Entire blocks went up in flames. To intensify the hellish scene, nineteenth century cities were full of animals, and many of them caught on fire. As residents fled for their lives, pigs, donkeys, goats, and cows ran around ablaze, and added their piteous screams to the roar of the flames.

Many Dubliners saw opportunity amidst the disaster: free whiskey! Per a contemporary newspaper: “It is stated that caps, porringers, and other vessels were in great requisition to scoop up the liquor as it flowed from the burning premises, and disgusting as it may seem, some fellows were observed to take off their boots and use them as drinking cups“. Others scooped up whiskey with their cupped hands, and drank themselves senseless. That proved costly, because it was not finished whiskey that flowed in the streets, but undrinkable industrial alcohol that had yet to be treated. Dozens were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, and thirteen died. The disaster even claimed dogs. One canine lapped whiskey on the street, and snapped. It invaded a house and attacked its owner, who had to defend himself with an iron bar, then ran upstairs and leapt to its death from a window.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

California History, Vol. 81, No. 2 (2002) – Who Made Drake’s Plate? Hint: It Wasn’t Francis Drake

Centre for Scottish Culture, University of Dundee – Scottish History at a Glance: The Black Dinner of 1440

CNN – ‘Game of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin: Why He Wrote the Red Wedding

Cracked – 13 of the Most Expensive Mistakes in History

Curtin, Philip D. – The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (1969)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Bartolome de Las Casas

Encyclopedia Britannica – Musa I of Mali

Fang Xuanling – The Book of Jin

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe II, From the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome (1994)

Goody Feed – 5 Facts About 1986’s Hotel New World Collapse that S’Poreans Probably Didn’t Know Of