The Cocoanut Grove

The club had a legal capacity of around four hundred and sixty and about a thousand people were in it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Fire began in an artificial palm in the downstairs Melody Lounge and went across the ceiling faster than people could stand up. The decorative fabric and the leatherette burned fast and gave off gas that killed many where they sat.

The main entrance was a single revolving door and it jammed with people pressed into it from both sides. Other exits were locked, bolted, or hidden behind drapes. Bodies were found stacked at doors that opened inward.

Four hundred and ninety-two were killed - more than the building was licensed to hold - and hundreds hurt.

The burn treatment developed at Boston City and Massachusetts General on the survivors changed the medicine of burns, and American exit law was rewritten: outward-opening doors, no revolving door as a sole exit, lit exit signs, no flammable decoration.