Timeline of New York City crimes and disasters
The following is a timeline of New York City crimes and disasters.
17th century
18th century
- 1702 - Yellow fever epidemic
carries away over 500.
- September 21, 1776 -
Approximately 1000 houses, a quarter of the city, are destroyed in a fire a week after British troops captured the city during
the American Revolution. Arson is speculated and during a
round-up of suspicious persons, Nathan Hale is arrested. [1] (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1274.html)
- August 3, 1778 - Fire near Cruger's Wharf
destroys 64 homes. [2] (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/fire/11-20/ch14pt2.html)
- 1794 - Minor yellow fever
epidemic leads to creation of Bellevue Hospital.
- 1795 - Yellow fever epidemic
kills 732 between July 19 and October
12, from a total population of about 50,000. [3] (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=194570)
- December 9, 1796 - The "Coffee House
Slip Fire," destroys about 50 structures near Murray Wharf. [4] (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/fire/11-20/ch14pt2.html)
- 1798 - The "great epidemic", a major yellow fever epidemic, kills 2086 people from late July to November. [5] (http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/NYC98.html) Epidemics
occur in several other years, but this was the worst of them all. [6] (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=194570)
19th century
- 1803 - Yellow fever
epidemic.
- 1805 - Yellow fever epidemic,
during which as many as 50,000 people are said to have fled the city.
- May 19, 1811 - Close to 100 buildings burn
down on Chatham Street.
- 1819 - Yellow fever
epidemic.
- September 3, 1821 - The Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane causes a storm surge of 13 ft in one hour, leading to
widespread flooding south of Canal St., but few deaths are reported. The hurricane is estimated to have been a Category 3 event and to have made landfall at Jamaica Bay, making it the only hurricane in recorded history to directly strike what is now modern New
York City.
- 1822 - Last important outbreak of a yellow fever epidemic in the city.
- 1832 - Cholera Pandemic reaches North America. It breaks out in New York City on June 26, peaks at 100 deaths per day during July, and finally abates in December. More than 3500 people die in the
city, many in the lower class neighborhoods, particularly Five Points. Another 80,000 people, one third of the population, are said to have fled the city
during the epidemic. [7] (http://earlyamerica.com/review/2000_fall/1832_cholera.html) [8] (http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/cholera/1832/cholera_1832_new.html)
- December 16, 1835 - More than 600
buildings are destroyed by a fire which rages for two days in the Financial District. Efforts to stop the fire are limited by sub-zero temperatures which
freezes water in hoses, wells, and the East River. 23 insurance companies are
wiped out by the resulting claims.
- 1848-1849 - Cholera epidemic begins in December 1848, its spread initially limited by winter weather. By June 1849, it reaches
epidemic proportions. Eventually 5071 city residents die. [9] (http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/cholera/1849/)
- 1854 - Cholera epidemic kills 2509.
- July 13-17, 1863 - Approximately 50,000 people riot in
protest of President Abraham Lincoln's announcement of a draft for
troops to fight in the American Civil War. Over 100 are killed
and many African Americans flee the city.
- 1866 - Cholera epidemic kills "only" 1137,
its spread having been limited by the efforts of the new Metropolitan Board of Health and enforcement of sanitation laws.
[10] (http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/cholera/1866/cholera_1866_set.html)
- July 30, 1871 - A boiler explosion aboard
the Westfield II Staten Island Ferry kills 125 among
hundreds of Manhattanites making a weekend trip to the beaches.
- December 5, 1876 - A stage scenery
fire envelopes the Brooklyn Theatre during a performance of "The Two Orphans" and kills at least 276 people, primarily patrons in
the upper gallery. [11] (http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Newspaper/BSU/1876.Bklyn.Theatre.Fire.html)
- January 13, 1882 - A train wreck
occurs just south of Spuyten Duyvil Creek when a local
train from Tarrytown crashes into the tail end of an
express from Albany which had stopped on the tracks in order to
make an emergency repair. At least 10 persons were killed, including a state senator. [12] (http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/wksdfl.Html)
- March 12-13, 1888 - The "White Hurricane", aka the Great Blizzard of '88, paralyzes the Eastern seaboard from Maryland to Maine, in New York City
causing temperatures to fall as much as 60 degrees. About 21 inches of snow fall on the city, but enormous winds whip it into
drifts as much as 20 feet deep. Regionally, over 400 people are said to have died in the storm's path. [13] (http://www.teachervision.fen.com/lesson-plans/lesson-3826.html)
- August 5-13, 1896 - A heat wave prostrates the city, with temperatures exceeding 90°F for nine days both day and
night, with stagnant air and oppressive humidity. About 420 people die, mostly in crowded tenements in areas such as the Lower East Side.
- September 13, 1899 - Henry Bliss becomes the first person killed in an automobile accident in the United States when he steps off a streetcar at 74th St. and Central Park West and is struck by a taxicab.
20th century
- June 15, 1904 - The General Slocum, carrying 1300 to a picnic site on Long Island, catches fire while on the East River. Over 1000 passengers are killed, ending the existence of the German neighbourhood Little Germany, New York
- June 25, 1906 - Stanford White is shot and killed by Harry K. Thaw at what was then Madison
Square Gardens. The murder would soon be dubbed "the Crime of the Century".
- January 8, 1908 - A train collision in
the original Park Avenue tunnel kills 17 and injures 38.
- August 9, 1910 - Reformist Mayor William Jay Gaynor is shot in
the throat in Hoboken, New Jersey by former city employee
James Gallagher. He eventually dies in September 1913 from effects of the wound.
- March 25, 1911 - 145 employees, mostly
women, are killed in the Triangle Factory fire near
Washington Square Park, some by being forced to jump
from the building by the fire. [14] (http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/)
- 1918 - The Great Influenza Pandemic rages across the country and worldwide. In one particularly virulent
October day, 851 people died in New York City alone.
- November 1, 1918 - The actions of a
substitute motorman filling in during a strike lead to a subway crash in Flatbush,
Brooklyn. The Malbone Street Wreck kills 97 people heading home from work and injures a hundred more. [15] (http://www.nycsubway.org/bmt/brighton/malbone01.html)
- September 16, 1920 - The Wall Street bombing kills 40 at the "the precise center, geographical
as well as metaphorical, of financial America and even of the financial world." Anarchists were suspected (Sacco and Vanzetti had been indicted just days before) but no one was
ever charged with the crime.
- August 24, 1928 - A subway crash caused
by a defective switch below Times Square kills 16 and injures 150.
- March 19, 1935 - The arrest of a
shoplifter inflames racial tensions in Harlem and escalates to
rioting and looting, with three killed, 125 injured and 100 arrested. [16] (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/laic/episode6/topic4/e6_t4_s3-ra.html)
- August 11, 1937 - Heavy rains cause a
tenement in New Brighton, Staten Island, to collapse, killing 19.
- September 21, 1938 - The Great New England Hurricane of 1938
strikes Long Island [17] (http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/) and
continues into New England, killing 564. In New York City, ten people are killed and power is lost across upper Manhattan and the
Bronx.
- November 16, 1940 - George Metesky plants the first bomb of his sixteen years as "The Mad
Bomber".
- August 1, 1943 - A race riot erupts in
Harlem after an African-American soldier is shot by the police
and rumored to be killed. The incident touches off a simmering brew of racial tension, unemployment, and high prices to a day of
rioting and looting. Several looters are shot dead, and about 500 persons are injured and another 500 arrested.
- July 28, 1945 - A B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 13 people.
- June 25, 1946 - Fire destroys the St.
George terminal of the Staten Island Ferry, killing 3 and
injuring 280.
- February 1, 1957 - Northeast Airlines Flight 823
crashes on Rikers Island on takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, killing 21 of the 101 on board.
- February 3, 1959 - American Airlines Flight 320 crashes in the East River on approach to LaGuardia
Airport, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.
- December 16, 1960 - Mid-air
collision between TWA Flight 266 (inbound to Idlewild
Airport, now JFK) and
United Airlines Flight 826 (inbound to LaGuardia Airport) over Miller Field, Staten Island. [18] (http://www.unfriendlyskies.com/first_chapter.html) The TWA
aircraft crashed at the site, killing all aboard, while the United aircraft continued flying for about eight miles until it
crashed in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, narrowly missing a school. All 134 aboard the aircraft died, along with six persons on the ground in
Brooklyn.
- March 1, 1962 - American Airlines Flight 1 crashes immediately after takeoff from
Idlewild Airport, killing all 95 on board.
- November 30, 1962 - Eastern Airlines Flight 512 crashes when trying to make a go-round after
failing to land at Idlewild Airport in the fog. 25 of the 51 on
board are killed.
- April 20, 1963 - Three brush fires on
Staten Island destroy 100 homes.
- March 13, 1964 - Kitty Genovese is stabbed to death in Kew Gardens, Queens. The crime is witnessed by numerous
people, none of whom aid Genovese or call for help. The crime is noted by psychology textbooks in later years for its
demonstration of the bystander effect, although an article
published in the New York Times in February 2004 indicated that many of the popular conceptions of the crime
were instead misconceptions. [19] (http://www.oldkewgardens.com/kitty_genovese-005.html)
- February 8, 1965 - Eastern Airlines Flight 663 crashes at Jones Beach when after takeoff from JFK it is forced to evade inbound
PanAm Flight 212. All 84 on board are
killed.
- February 21, 1965 - Black nationalist leader Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom
by three members of the Nation of Islam.
- November 9, 1965 - New York City is
affected as part of the Northeast Blackout of
1965.
- October 17, 1966 - A fire across 23rd
St. from Madison Square kills
12 members of the New York City Fire
Department when a floor collapses beneath them. It was the worst day in the FDNY's history until September 11, 2001.
- June 28, 1969 - A questionable police raid
on the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village gay bar, is resisted by the patrons and leads to a
riot. The event helps inspire the founding of the modern gay rights
movement.
- February 10, 1973 - 40 workers are
killed in an explosion while cleaning an empty LNG tank in Bloomfield, Staten Island.
- June 24, 1975 - Eastern Airlines Flight 66 from New Orleans strikes the runway lights at Kennedy airport, probably due to wind
shear. 113 of the 124 people on board are killed. [20] (http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Aviation/Disasters/75-06-24(Eastern).asp)
- December 29, 1975 - A bomb explodes
in the baggage claim area of the TWA terminal at LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 and injuring 74. The perpetrators were never identified. [21] (http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/12/24/ctv.laguardia/)
- July 29, 1976 - David Berkowitz (aka the "Son
of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the
next year.
- July 13-14, 1977 - New York City again loses power in the blackout of 1977. Unlike the previous blackout twelve years earlier, this blackout is
followed by widespread rioting and looting. David Berkowitz does nothing during the blackout.
- December 8, 1980 - Ex-Beatle John Lennon is murdered virtually on the doorstep of his home, The Dakota.
- December 22, 1984 - Bernhard Goetz shoots four men on a subway who tried to rob him. The crime is
subsequently celebrated by graffiti artists.
- April 14, 1989 - Trisha Meili (aka the Central Park Jogger) is violently raped and beaten while
jogging in Central Park. The crime is later attributed to a group of young
men who were practicing an activity they called "wilding". However, DNA evidence later proved the originally charged teens
innocent; a convicted serial rapist confessed to the crime.
- January 25, 1990 - Avianca Flight 52 to Kennedy airport crashes at Cove Neck, Long Island, after missing an
approach and then running out of fuel. 73 of 158 passengers are killed.
- March 25, 1990 - Arson at the Happyland Social Club in the East Tremont section of the Bronx kills 87
people unable to escape the packed dance club. [22] (http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/happyland/)
- November 5, 1990 - Rabbi Meier Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, is assassinated by El Sayyid Nosair.
- August 19, 1991 - A Jewish automobile driver accidentally kills a seven-year-old African-American boy, thereby touching off the Crown Heights riots, during which two others are killed.
- March 22, 1992 - Ice buildup without
subsequent de-icing causes USAir Flight 405 to crash on takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. 27 of the 51 on board are killed.
- February 26, 1993 - A bomb planted
by terrorists explodes in the World Trade Center's underground
garage, killing six people and injuring over a thousand, as well as causing much damage to the basement. See: World Trade Center bombing
- December 7, 1993 - Colin Ferguson shoots 25 passengers, killing six, on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train out of Penn Station.
- July 17, 1996 - TWA Flight 800 departs Kennedy airport and crashes in Long Island Sound, killing all 230 people on board. [23] (http://www.ntsb.gov/events/twa800/)
- September 2, 1998 - Swissair Flight 111 departs Kennedy airport and crashes off
of the coast of Nova Scotia.
- October 31, 1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 departs Kennedy airport and crashes off
of the coast of Nantucket. [24] (http://www.ntsb.gov/events/EA990/)
21st century
See also
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