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Great New York City Fire Of 1845
The Great New York City Fire of 1845 broke out on July 19, 1845, in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The fire started in a whale oil and candle manufacturing establishment and quickly spread to other wooden structures. It reached a warehouse on Broad Street where combustible saltpeter was stored and caused a massive explosion that spread the fire even farther. The fire destroyed 345 buildings in the southern part of what is now the Financial District, resulting in property damage estimated at the time between $5 million and $10 million (equivalent to between $ and $ in ). Four firefighters and 26 civilians died. The Great New York City Fire of 1845 was the last of three particularly devastating fires that affected the heart of Manhattan, the other two occurring in 1776 and 1835. While very destructive, the 1845 fire confirmed the value of building codes restricting wood-frame construction, which had been implemented in 1815. In spite of general improvements, the 184 ...
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Bowling Green (New York City)
Bowling Green is a small public park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, at the southern end of Broadway. Located next to the site of the original Dutch fort of New Amsterdam, it served as a public place before being designated as a park in 1733. It is the oldest public park in New York City and is surrounded by its original 18th-century fence. It included an actual bowling green and an equestrian statue of King George III prior to the American Revolutionary War. Bowling Green is surrounded by numerous buildings, including the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, International Mercantile Marine Company Building, Bowling Green Offices Building, Cunard Building, 26 Broadway, and 2 Broadway. The '' Charging Bull'' sculpture is located on its northern end, while Battery Park is located to the southwest. The park is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places under the name Bowling Green Fence and Park. It is also a contributing property to t ...
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Croton Aqueduct
The Croton Aqueduct or Old Croton Aqueduct was a large and complex water distribution system constructed for New York City between 1837 and 1842. The great aqueducts, which were among the first in the United States, carried water by gravity from the Croton River in Westchester County to reservoirs in Manhattan. It was built because local water resources had become polluted and inadequate for the growing population of the city. Although the aqueduct was largely superseded by the New Croton Aqueduct, which was built in 1890, the Old Croton Aqueduct remained in service until 1955. Background The island of Manhattan, surrounded by brackish rivers, had a limited supply of freshwater available. It dwindled as the city grew rapidly after the American Revolutionary War, and freshwater sources became polluted by effluent. Before the aqueduct was constructed, residents of New York obtained water from cisterns, wells, natural springs, and other bodies of water. But rapid population growth ...
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Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and carbon act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines and road building. Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn at subsonic speeds), whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellant but is ...
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Trinity Church Cemetery
The parish of Trinity Church has three separate burial grounds associated with it in New York City. The first, Trinity Churchyard, is located in Lower Manhattan at 74 Trinity Place, near Wall Street and Broadway. Alexander Hamilton, Albert Gallatin, and Robert Fulton are buried in the downtown Trinity Churchyard. The second Trinity parish burial ground is the St. Paul's Chapel Churchyard, which is also located in lower Manhattan (roughly ), six blocks north of Trinity Church. It was established in 1766. Both of these churchyards are closed to new burials. Trinity's third place of burial, Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, located in Hamilton Heights in Upper Manhattan, is one of the few active burial sites in Manhattan. Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum is listed on the National Register of Historic places and is the burial place of notable people including John James Audubon, John Jacob Astor IV, Mayor Edward I. Koch, Governor John Adams Dix, Ralph Ellison, and El ...
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Sandy Hook
Sandy Hook is a barrier spit in Middletown Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The barrier spit, approximately in length and varying from wide, is located at the north end of the Jersey Shore. It encloses the southern entrance of Lower New York Bay south of New York City, protecting it from the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean to the east. The Dutch called the area "Sant Hoek", with the English "Hook" deriving from the Dutch "Hoek" (corner, angle), meaning "spit of land". For over three centuries mariners tasked with guiding ships across the Sandy Hook bar have been known as Sandy Hook pilots. Most of Sandy Hook is owned and managed by the National Park Service as the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area. Description Geologically, Sandy Hook is a large sand spit or barrier spit, the extension of a barrier peninsula along the coast of New Jersey, separated from the mainland by the estuary of the Shrewsbury River. On its western s ...
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Potassium Nitrate
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrate ions NO3−, and is therefore an alkali metal nitrate. It occurs in nature as a mineral, niter (or ''nitre'' in the UK). It is a source of nitrogen, and nitrogen was named after niter. Potassium nitrate is one of several nitrogen-containing compounds collectively referred to as saltpeter (or ''saltpetre'' in the UK). Major uses of potassium nitrate are in fertilizers, tree stump removal, rocket propellants and fireworks. It is one of the major constituents of gunpowder (black powder). In processed meats, potassium nitrate reacts with hemoglobin and myoglobin generating a red color. Etymology Potassium nitrate, because of its early and global use and production, has many names. Hebrew and Egyptian words for it had the co ...
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NYC Fire 1845 Explosion Loc
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, research, technology, ed ...
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Looting
Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. The proceeds of all these activities can be described as booty, loot, plunder, spoils, or pillage. During modern-day armed conflicts, looting is prohibited by international law, and constitutes a war crime.Rule 52. Pillage is prohibited.
''Customary IHL Database'', (ICRC)/

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William Street (Manhattan)
William Street is a street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It runs generally southwest to northeast, crossing Wall Street and terminating at Broad Street and Spruce Street, respectively. Between Beaver Street and Broad Street, the street is known as South William Street. Between Beekman Street and Spruce Street, in front of New York Downtown Hospital, William Street is a pedestrian-only street. History It is one of the oldest streets in Manhattan and can be seen in the 1660 Castello Plan of New Amsterdam. It was originally called King Street, but was later renamed William after Willem Beekman who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1647 as a fellow passenger of Peter Stuyvesant. Beekman got his start as a Dutch West India Company clerk and later served nine terms as mayor of the young port city. The buildings on South William Street 13-23 were reconstructed in the Dutch revival style by architect C. P. H. Gilbert and later Edward L. Tilton in t ...
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Marketfield Street
Marketfield Street is a short one-way, one-block-long alleyway in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The street begins as a southern branch of Beaver Street, then veers east and north, ending at Broad Street. Alternative past names include Exchange Street, Field Street, Fieldmarket Street, Oblique Road, and Petticoat Lane. The name Marketfield Street is a translation from the Dutch. The street originally ran to the Dutch livestock market, ''Marcktveldt'', located near where Battery Park is now, which was then outside the walls of the city. The market operated from 1638 to 1647. In 1641, the Governor-General of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, opened the colony's first cattle market there. By 1680, mainly poor people were living on Marketfield Street. In 1688, the city's first French Huguenot church was built there. In September 1776, Marketfield Street was part of the area devastated by the Great Fire of New York, which engulfed the southwestern tip of Ma ...
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Beaver Street (Manhattan)
Beaver Street is a street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Beaver Street runs five blocks from Pearl Street in the east to Broadway in the west. Along its length, it crosses Hanover, William, Broad, and New Streets. The street is preserved as part of the New Amsterdam street grid, a New York City designated landmark. History In the 17th century city of New Amsterdam, the Dutch created two canals, one at present-day Broad Street and one at present-day Beaver Street. The latter originally existed as two separate tributaries of the Broad Street canal; the section west of modern-day Broad Street was called ''Bever Graft'' or Beaver Canal, while the section to the east was called ''De Prince Graft'' or Prince Canal, which ended in a ditch that the Dutch called a "sloot". Despite the fact that Prince Canal became Princes Street (later Beaver Street), ''Prince Graft'' was a name referring to a canal on Broad Street, not Beaver Street. Beaver Street was cr ...
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Broadway (Manhattan)
Broadway () is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broadway runs from State Street at Bowling Green for through the borough of Manhattan and through the Bronx, exiting north from New York City to run an additional through the Westchester County municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow.There are four other streets named "Broadway" in New York City's remaining three boroughs: one each in Brooklyn ( see main article) and Staten Island, and two in Queens (one running from Astoria to Elmhurst, and the other in Hamilton Beach). Each borough therefore has a street named "Broadway". See also from Forgotten NY: Broadway in the Bronx, Page 1anPage 2Broadway in Queens, Page 1anPage 2Broadway in Staten Island It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in New York City, with much of the current street beginning as the Wickquasgeck trail before the arrival of Europeans. This formed the ...
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