Today in Fire History 9/25

9/25/1910 a firefighter was crushed beneath a falling wall and killed at the First Presbyterian Church of Hastings, that NE was totally destroyed by a fire. The church building erected in 1888 had a membership of over 700 –

9/25/2003 a four-story nursing home fire killed fourteen, injured twenty-five (twenty critically) in Nashville, TN. Most of the 120 residents were bedridden and unable to escape; firefighters carry many elderly occupants down stairs & ladders. The concrete building had no sprinkler system. –

9/25/1985 Davie, FL a muffler shop explosion left four dead, eight injured and damaged all 34 stores at the Davie Shopping Center across the street. It is believed a leaking 250-gallon liquefied petroleum gas tank may have detonated. –

9/25/1963 Bun Hirama rubber shoe factory fire killed fourteen in Kobe, Japan –

9/25/1978 a Pacific Southwest Airlines jet collided in mid-air with a small Cessna over San Diego, killing 153 people. –

9/25/1873 Wapello, ID a balloon fire and crash killed the pilot –

9/25/1789 the Bill of Rights passes Congress: “the first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification… Influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the Bill of Rights was also drawn from Virginia's Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason in 1776… In December 1791, Virginia became the 10th of 14 states to approve 10 of the 12 amendments, thus giving the Bill of Rights and reaching the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it legal. Of the two amendments not ratified, the first concerned the population system of representation, while the second prohibited laws varying the payment of congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened. The first of these two amendments was never ratified, while the second was finally ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992.” –