S3 Ep28: Terror in the Big Top: The Hartford Circus Fire

Crimes of the Centuries

Amber Hunt and Audioboom

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut, thousands of patrons were excited to escape the heat and attend the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus performance. While the Flying Wallendas began their performance inside the tent, chaos ensued shortly after. The fire that began as a small flame about 20 feet from the main exit spread rapidly when it came in contact with the tent canvas. Panicked patrons ran for the exits as the flames grew to 100 feet high, only for many to be blocked by animal cages and bottlenecks. In today's episode, we explore one of the worst fire disasters in United States history that injured more than 700 people and killed nearly 170.

"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from the Obsessed Network exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they change laws, change society, or even
0:15.0	earn the label crime of the century.
0:18.9	But the stories that made headlines and decades passed aren't necessarily remembered today.
0:25.5	I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author, and in each episode of this show, I'll examine
0:30.6	a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.
0:37.1	This is crimes of the centuries.
0:50.6	For more than a century, circuses criss-cross the country to distract its hounds residents
0:56.1	from the daily drudgery of work, economic depression, and political upheaval.
1:01.5	When, upon entering the circus tent, you were enveloped by the scent of stale popcorn
1:07.0	and various animal odors, you knew you could leave your world behind for a few hours, unbothered
1:12.7	by the dangers of the so-called real world.
1:15.7	And these steps with people told themselves, in reality, the same dangers that threaten
1:33.0	the real world also threatened to invade the magic beneath the big top, especially when
1:37.8	it came to fires, what with so much cloth and dry hay and nearly every adult that
1:42.7	entered had a cigarette in their hands.
1:45.5	Legendary circus and prasario PT Barnum lost two museums in New York to fires in the 1860s.
1:52.2	The Barnum and London outfit had a major fire in 1887 and again in 1900 with several smaller
1:58.4	fires during the 1910s.
2:00.7	They lost more than $100,000, which is over $3 million in today's money and yet another
2:06.5	fire in 1924.
2:08.6	The biggest circus, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, had a fire breakout
2:13.7	August 4, 1942.
	...

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