Fire at the Triangle factory.
In late March 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. In a matter of hours, 146 workers died at the facility, people were trapped, it was impossible to leave the building because of the locked doors. Those who saw the fire with their own eyes called it a terrible sight, the factory workers, choking on the smoke in panic, jumped from the building, crashing to death. The victims were mainly migrants from other countries who had just arrived in America. The Triangle fire forced the government to fight for workers' rights. Trade unions were opened, commissions were created that not only monitored safety at work, but also developed new laws. One of the eyewitnesses of the fire, Frances Perkins was so shocked by what she saw that she devoted her life to defending the rights of workers. As a result, she became Secretary of Labor under US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Fire on the Cuyahoga River
John D. Rockefeller set up his first oil refinery by the Cuyahoga River. In those days, few people paid attention to ecology, so the oil refinery dumped the remains of the processed oil into the river. Unsurprisingly, the river has burned several times over the course of a couple of years. But the fire on June 22, 1969 was special. In the 60s, journalists began to raise the topic of pollution of American rivers. When journalists were filming a report in a problem area, the river suddenly burst into flames. This story became instructive for the government, society no longer wanted to tolerate such disrespectful attitude of industrialists to people. Thanks to the fire in Cuyahoga, many environmental laws were passed that are still in force today.
History teaches that any incident happens for a reason and carries some kind of lesson for people.