Hell on Earth

the ocean and seemingly very safe. The vessel belonged to the world's first airline company, and it had an outstanding track record. The Hindenburg was an engineering marvel and a prized possession. Named propaganda machine of the Nazi Party. It flew with swastikas and was filled with all the luxuries expected by anyone who could afford a ticket, beautiful interiors, comfortable cabins, elegant meals, and even a fireproof smoking lounge.

And although Werner and his siblings would have preferred the spacious decks and play spases of a traditional ocean liner. The airship's catwalks and views of ice filled landscapes were memories that he held on to for the rest of his life. To stay afloat, the ship swelled with over seven million cubic feet of hydrogen gas. To fly, it carried four diesel engines. The further it traveled, the more

fuel it used, and the lighter it became. It was imperative for the ship to maintain its weight for fear of rising too high. A solution came in the form of clouds. The ship passed through them and collected rain water. For some on board, it felt close to heaven. Just after dawn on May sixth, Werner and his family prepared to land. They were expecting to be on the ground shortly, but the captain decided to bide his time. There was a storm coming in and he wanted to take extra precautions.

By that evening, the ship was cleared for touchdown in Lakehurst, New Jersey. There, the ground crew waited to receive the ship's roping so it could be securely tied to a mooring mast. A light rain began to fall the wind blustered. The crew decided to go for a riskier high landing. They had passed the lines down from a higher altitude, but the ship was soon tied into the ground winches and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. For nearly a century, eyewitnesses, historians,

and engineers have debated what happened next. What we do know is this, at seven twenty five PM, a spark created a flame that caused an explosion near the stern of the ship. Its hydrogen was released in a massive plume that would have been invisible save for the fireball. The fire sprinted across the airship's magnificent skin, voracious in

its incineration, Hindenberg's keleton plummeted to the ground. The groundsman screamed and scattered under the heat and falling debris, and in just forty seconds from start to finish, the disaster was over, at least at the airfield. Thirty six people died that day, but that moment, one of the most stunning disasters of modern aviation, was captured in real time as a radio broadcast. Photographs and footage captured by the

press were shared across the globe. What started out as a day of joy for Werner, his family, and the rest of those on board had taken a very dark turn. Though he would survive the accident, his sister would not. What could have been filed away as a happy memory for all aboard became a fundamentally life altering moment from which those who were there that day would never recover. This is an extreme example, but it's also true that for many of us, this is how it usually happens.

I'm Lorn Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. Merrel Evans was a magician. His tool of choice, though, wasn't a magic wand, but a conductor's bow. For over twenty years, Murrell had been at the helm of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus Orchestra. Alongside his colleagues in the pit and the ring. Merrell had made it his business to cultivate wonder. He shaped each circus's mood with his music and invisible stage set by the flick of his wrists and motion

of his hands. He was a master of his craft, one of the best around. On July sixth of nineteen forty five, Murrell and his crew were sweating in their white and gold suits, though the day had just begun. The air was electric as visitors from all over Connecticut filed into the Big Top and filled the beaches of red and blue wooden chairs. They'd come for the matinee show. In a way, this was a homecoming, after all. P. T.

Barnum had been born a few dozen miles away. Over the years, Hartford had become an internationally famous circus destination. To say that Circus Day was one of the biggest days of the year, it's no understatement. The circus trains were marvelous beasts, traveling the rails and bringing American audiences sites they could otherwise only dream about. The circus brought the outside world in, and for the price of a few pennies, that world could be theirs, if only for

a few hours. Everyone's brows and backs were damp with sweat, which was certainly to be expected at the height of summer. Even still, the mood was buoyant, excitable. Even it seemed that the Allies might soon claim victory in Europe and the war's end might be eminent. The audience, largely made up of mothers, children, and great parents, couldn't wait to

have their husbands, fathers and sons home again. It was the circus's responsibility to keep this atmosphere jubilant a heavy task given that this season had been a particularly trying one. It was plagued by personnel shortages, small fires, canceled performances, and a loss in profit. A large part of their labor force had gone off to fight. They couldn't travel

as far as they once did. The rail lines were prioritized for the effort, but so significant was the circus's impact on American morale that President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the Ringling Brothers train a special dispensation, and they were able to carry on. Still, they had rolled into town behind schedule, with little time to inspect the grounds. Before showtime, hundreds of workers had helped to erect the square mile of circus tent, under which it estimated eight thousand people

took their seats. It was ringed with wagons and caged animal runways, and flew an American flag above it. All the stars and stripes hung limp that day in the summer's heat. A bit after two PM, the casting crew scuttled to their places, applied the last of their make up, got the animals into their chutes, and took their positions. Murle, directly across from the ten's entrance, took to his bandstand, preparing his twenty nine person ensemble to ready their instruments.

The show was about to begin. When they began to play, the crowd erupted in delight. The show girls dazzled, clowns dashed about the ring and its streating parade of animals too. The big cats roared, and the elephants marched in time. It was a joyful cacophony. The Flying Welendas, a world famous family act of death defying acrobats, soon took their position high above the crowd. But from thirty feet in the air, they saw it, a small flame creeping up

the southwest sidewall of the tent. Murle soon saw it too. Fires and circus tents weren't uncommon. He knew that, in fact, there was a whole crew of people known as bucket men, whose entire job it was to watch for little eruptions of flame. After all, their workplace was highly flammable. It was filled with dry grass, sawdust, canvas, and a crowd fond of cigarettes. But there was something about this flame

that looked just wrong. It had begun to climb high and fast, licking up the wall with a fiery ferocity that no bucket man or men would be able to snuff. Murle saw it rise behind the patrons, who seemed to be oblivious to what was taking place just beyond their seats. Merle sounded the alarm. He ordered his band to play the Stars and Stripes Forever, the universal circus signal for

impending disaster. As their brass blairs filled the tent, some people in the audience mistook it for another patriotic display. They hummed along, some pretended to march in place as Some thought this was all part of the act. Others thought there wasn't much to worry about and that it would soon be under control. But below them, the circus personnel had broken form and were preparing for chaos. Their eyes were locked, and the flames shot upward. The ingredients

for an inferno are simple oxygen, heat, and fuel. It's a devastating mix. The fourth factor that makes the sum of these parts so deadly is speed. What people don't understand until it's too late is how quickly fire can spread, and how truly helpless we are in the face of this primal element. Humanity was borne from fire, and fire can very quickly snuff us out. For example, a fire can heat a two story home up to five hundred

degrees three minutes from inception. In just under four minutes, the room where the fire originated might reach fourteen hundred degrees. And it's in this superheated, blistering flash over moment where almost everything present has released noxious flammable gases that everything within the fire's reach will burst into flames. It's the heat, gas and smoke inhalation that often claim lives before the

inferno comes. Scientists believe that this is how most people died of Pompeii, not from being engulfed in flames, but due to a superheated tidal wave of boiling hot gas. So when we talk about the chance to escape a fire, we're talking about a mere window of seconds. It was in this moment at the Hartford Circus, when the wallendas spotted the flames licking when Murrel signaled his band to play,

that the audience caught on. Someone in the stands shouted one of the most dangerous words to yell in a crowded space fire. The circus probably hoped for a swift and calm evacuation, but panic is often more powerful than hope. People moved calmly at first, aided by the circus ushers, but as the flames moved from a crawl to a sprint, the crowd decided that they had to do the same.

The big top filled with shouts and screams and the stampede of feet down the risers, the clatter of chairs being knocked over, and the thud of people tripping down. Eight thousand people needed to make it out alive. The bucket men were out of their depth. It was clear that water was needed, but to the horror of the circus crew, their tent was set up too far from municipal water sources. The hoses that had brought had the wrong fittings and wouldn't attach, and the water wagons outfitted

for small fires were no match. The circus crew took to their stations and fought however they could. They gathered the animals and brought them to safety, and worked to guide the panicked audience as well. Whoever had a bucket within reach grabbed it, but soon realized to the futility of the effort. They watched as the canvas tent coated in over six thousand pounds of paraffin and gasoline, a favorite mixture for waterproofing, turned into a fiery wall, climbing

to a height of one hundred feet. Within three minutes, the flames had reached the ceiling, and then the paraffin began to melt, casting down flames onto the crowd below. Those who made it to the ground were horrified to find most of the eight small exits blocked by steel animal shoots. Small children were pushed over as adults tried to climb the superheated metal. Others were trapped in the pushing, writhing mass of people, pivoting and trying to make escapes

in other directions. When some cut the canvas and slipped out through the slits. At the four minute mark, the first fire alarm rang at the firehouse just half a mile away. In this bedlam merl and his troop kept their positions and continued to play. This was his duty, this was his destiny, his proudest posting the most important moment of his career. The show would go on until it couldn't. He would stay the course and carry his circus through to the very end. The tension ropes began

to catch fire and snap. One by one, the big top. Supporting poles crashed to the ground, buckling the canvas. Each lumbering fall kicked up a heated blast, singing the skin of those still inside. The buckling canvas fanned the flames with more oxygen. At about the five minute mark, Merle ordered his band to evacuate. His timing was impeccable. It was reported that just moments after they left the band stand,

it was crushed by a falling tent pole. For three more minutes, the flames roared into the sky, filling it with smoke and ash. The temperature inside the tent climbed and would continue to climb to an estimated sixteen hundred degrees hot enough to melt metal in fuse bodies. All the fire crew could do was hose down the blistered and blackened survivors, and then, as quickly as it had started,

it was over. At eight minutes, the fire had won The Big Top, a magnificent canvas the size of two football fields and weighing nineteen tons, collapsed in on itself. In doing so, it purged its belly of superheated air, singing the grass, trees and skin in its immediate orbit, the scream stopped. There was utter silence from the crowd. Merle's band played on. It didn't take long for the whispers to begin and rumors to fly. It was almost immediate.

The fire had no sooner eaten itself alive and stuffed itself out. The people began to talk. Was it arson? Was its sabotage? Could it really have been an accident? Radio announcers broadcasted news of the tragedy. The phone lines jammed with people from neighboring communities calling for word about their loved ones. Within the hour, hundreds of volunteers had descended on to the fair grounds, and people brought their

personal vehicles, and small businesses brought theirs. Makeshift stretchers were created to ferry the injured. It was soon clear that the city's emergency departments were about to be overrun. In the haze of soot and charred flesh, people searched in panic for their missing. The families had been split up in the tumult, the crowd forcing clasped hands apart, and smoke obscuring people's vision. Some families were reunited, some were

separated forever. The grounds were covered with bodies in various states of distress. Those with life left in them were promptly taken away. Those who perished were marked and taken in the opposite direction. Some victims were sent to Hartford Hospital. Lost children were sent to a local school. The State Armory became the temporary morgue. A large, cold building, the Armory was mostly quiet as survivors and extended family members snaked through its doors and shuffled down its hallways, trying

to identify bodies that were often charred beyond recognition. They were laid out on simple cots and covered with thin blankets. Shell shock blanketed the city. As the smoke and ashes settled. By nightfall, only two dozen victims had been identified, though over a hundred had perished. It was quickly realized that no circus folks had died in the blaze. If these survivors held on to any guilt, the police weren't interested

in hearing about it. These traveling heroes, these entertainers, who were expected to bring so much joy, had dramatically fallen from grace. They were single hands blamed for bringing this unthinkable tragedy. Fires are notoriously hard to investigate. Even more so when the scene of one hasn't been secured. Arson convictions are often founded on circumstantial evidence and good storytelling

as opposed to hard science. So though the circus employees were rounded up for questioning, a few had little more than a guess as to how the blaze started. The things that they were about to get in trouble for were the safety shortcomings and cut corners that allowed this tragedy to happen. All in all, one hundred and sixty eight people died in the Hartford Circus fire. It was nothing short of a miracle that the death poll wasn't higher on that fateful summer day. In the end, all

but six victims were identified. One of these unknowns gripped the spirits of Hartford citizens more than the others. She was a little girl, probably no more than eight years old, who looked like she had fallen into a peaceful, restle full sleep. Where some had been disfigured in the blaze, sometimes beyond hope of recognition, she had not. Her photos splashed across the papers, calling for anyone who might know her, but they never came. She became known as little Miss

fifteen sixty five. The number assigned to her at the Armory Morgue. Somewhere out there, her family was missing her. For a body so well preserved, no one could understand why no one recognized her. There were a few theories. Perhaps her family had perished, maybe she was visiting relatives

and no one knew to look for her. Maybe her family members were still in medically induced comas, or perhaps in a haze of grief at the morgue, her own family had identified another lost child's body as their own and left her behind. The week prior, the city had turned out for the circus train, But what drew them to the streets on July tenth was a funeral procession. For this circus fires unidentified victims. Mourners took to the streets as hearses made their way from Hartford Hospital to

Hartford City Hall and then to the graveyard. Hartford was no longer filled with the jubilant sound of the circus calliope nor the Big Brass band. Now the air was filled with funeral dirges. Five of the circus's executives were charged and booked for ten counts of involuntary manslaughter. They became defendants in multiple lawsuits found to be negligent. They even served short jail sentences for their part. There was no fighting the charges, only somber acceptance of their roles

in this mass tragedy. Upon investigation, it was soon clear where things had gone awry. They hadn't gotten proper clearance from the fire department. The fire extinguishers were in storage and inaccessible. The circus immediately agreed to pay out almost five million dollars in compensations to the victims and their families. To this day, the cause of the fire has never been fully determined, but some investigators believe it was an

errant cigarette. Other historians are convinced it was indeed arson. At one point, a disgruntled circus employee with a history of arson charges copped to setting the tent to blaze, but his confession was later recanted, though he did end up back in jail on an unrelated arson charge. To this day, some believe this was the true cause. The

intervening years were not particularly kind to the circus. Both the city of Hartford and the troop tried to heal from this tragedy, but its memory is still close at hand today. A memorial for the fire sits behind an elementary school, a large circular monument situated in the footprint of the Big Tops Center. On April thirtieth of twenty seventeen, the Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Circus made a pilgrimage back to Hartford. This was their farewell tour, and

this city was their last stop. A lot had changed in the intervening years, the safety measures and fire codes, technological innovations, and world events. Time continued to march on. But there under the Big Top the Flying Welenda's Acrobat family found themselves again, carrying on a legacy that had proven itself to be so colorful and so dark and so resilient. Returning to the scene of the crime, paying their respects to the lives lost and families forever altered,

the show went on. There's more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. It's true that Joseph Figlock never saw it coming, but the baby probably didn't either. Joseph was no stranger to a hard day's work, but it's difficult to say whether we can call him a lucky man. He had worked all of his life, having immigrated to the United States

with his family when he was just a toddler. By nineteen thirty seven, he called Detroit, Michigan, his home and was employed as a street sweeper with the Department of Public Works. He was going about his business one day when it came down from above, well, when she came down from above, out of a four story window, fell a small girl, landing smack on top of Joseph. He broke her landing, and though they were both injured, they

didn't break too much else. Reports of children falling from buildings were both newsworthy and not terribly uncommon in the earlier parts of the twentieth century. These days, it's estimated that each year about four thousand children ten years of age and under sea hospital treatment for window falls. Remarkably, only about twelve of those will die. And if you think about all of the windows in a city that might exist within arm's reach of a toddler, the math

suddenly seems surprisingly in the favor of small children. We can think of Joseph as lucky that day, as was the little girl. But this is where the story takes a step away from the realm of coincidence and into the area of strange happenstance. About a year later, on September twenty seventh of nineteen thirty eight, Joseph found himself sweeping another Detroit alley, just another morning on the job.

At around ten a m. The earth bound two year old Glenn Thomas fell from his home four floors above, crashing into Joseph and fracturing Glen's own thigh, arm, shoulder, and skull in the process, but the baby did survive. With that, Joseph unwittingly helped to avert disaster again, accidentally being at the right place at the right time and enabling these children to live on. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but it seems babies sometimes might.