The Our Lady of the Angels School fire (elementary school in Chicago, IL) happened on this day in 1958. Shortly before students were dismissed for the day, a fire broke out at the foot of a stairway, eventually killing 92 students and 3 nuns. This tragedy generated sweeping school fire safety regulations.
No one has been prosecuted for it, but it's suspected that a fifth grader, who had been excused to go to the restroom at around the same time, set the fire. He confessed to the police in 1962 but later recanted.
The day produced this photograph, published in Life magazine, of a boy named John Jajkowski, Jr. being carried out by a firefighter. John, like most of the victims, died from suffocation of the black and oily smoke.
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