March 25, 1911, downtown Manhattan in the ten-story Asch Building; it is mid afternoon. The top three floors of the building house the factory of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owned by Mr. Bianco and Mr. Harris. It had been a normal workday in the squalid surroundings of one of many New York sweatshops. Crowded on these three floors were some 600 women employees. Their pay for 12 hours work, a mere $15.00. A fire broke out in a rag bin on the eighth floor. Attempts to put it out with a hose were thwarted because the hose was rotten and the water valve rusted shut.

Panic ensued as the women frantically sought to escape. The building had four elevators but only one reached to the top floors. After taking four loads to safety the elevator failed and panicking women began jumping down the elevator shaft seeking safety. There were two stairways but the doors on one set were bolted shut. The women unfortunate enough to take these stairs were trapped and burned to death.

The firemen’s ladders reached only the seventh floor and their nets were not strong enough to catch the women who were jumping three at a time. Bianca and Harris were in their offices on the 10th floor and were able to escape by climbing onto the roof of the building and jumping to an adjacent roof. Although the fire was put out in less than half an hour 49 women were dead in the fire and another hundred were literally piled up in the elevator shaft or on the street below.

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire led to major reforms in the working conditions in the New York sweatshops. It led to major victory for the weak trade unions, and the New York Democratic Party took up the cause of the workers and became the Reform Party. Bianca and Harris were tried for their negligence but escaped punishment.

March 25, 1774, the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Act. The act, in retribution for the Boston Tea Party, closed the Port of Boston to all shipping and became one more cause for independence.

March 25, 1634, is the date of the settlement of Maryland. On this date the first colonists arrived and established a settlement at St Mary’s.

March 25, 1957, Ricky Nelson released his first pop hit recordings, “A Teenager’s Romance” and “I’m Walkin’.” He had no musical experience and was not known as a singer until he sang these songs on the show, Ozzie and Harriet.

What kind of a day will it be? A day filled with those events that alter and illumine the course of history. Life really is like that.