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St. Anthony's Hospital Fire
St. Anthony's Hospital fire was a disaster that occurred on April 4, 1949 in Effingham, Illinois. The disaster killed 74 people at the hospital. It is used as a prime example of possible fire hazards hospitals could and can have. St. Anthony's Hospital in Effingham, Illinois, was operated by the Sisters of St. Francis, who lived in a convent next door. Building The about 100-bed hospital was constructed mainly out of wood and brick. Parts of the building dated back to 1876. By 1949 the facility was completely outdated. It contained open corridors and staircases. Many walls and ceilings were covered with oilcloth fabrics and combustible soundproof tiles. The building lacked sprinklers as well as fire detection and alarm systems. Fire Shortly before midnight on April 4, 1949, a fire broke out at St. Anthony's Hospital. It spread rapidly through the building because of the open construction of the building and the combustible building materials. One of the victims, Frank Rie ...
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Midnight
Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours. Solar midnight is the time opposite to solar noon, when the Sun is closest to the nadir, and the night is equidistant from dusk and dawn. Due to the advent of time zones, which regularize time across a range of meridians, and daylight saving time, solar midnight rarely coincides with 12 midnight on the clock. Solar midnight depends on longitude and time of the year rather than on time zone. In ancient Roman timekeeping, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise (i.e., solar midnight), varying according to the seasons. In some Slavic languages, "midnight" has an additional geographic association with "north" (as " noon" does with " south"). Modern Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Serbian languages preserve this associa ...
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Effingham, Illinois
Effingham is a city in and the county seat of Effingham County, Illinois, United States. It is in South Central Illinois. Its population was 12,252 at the 2020 census. The city is part of the Effingham, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. The city bills itself as "The Crossroads of Opportunity" because of its location at the intersection of two major Interstate highways: I-57 running from Chicago to Sikeston, Missouri, and I-70 running from Utah to Maryland. It is also served by U.S. Route 45, which runs from Ontonagon, Michigan to Mobile, Alabama, U.S. Route 40, the historic National Road, which stretches from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Silver Summit, Utah, and Illinois routes 32 and 33 also run through the city. It is also a major railroad junction, the crossing of the Illinois Central main line from Chicago to Memphis with the Pennsylvania Railroad line from Indianapolis to St. Louis. For this reason, Effingham has a much broader range of restaurants and lodging f ...
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine United States Minor Outlying Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in Compact of Free Association, free association with three Oceania, Pacific Island Sovereign state, sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Palau, Republic of Palau. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders Canada–United States border, with Canada to its north and Mexico–United States border, with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the List of ...
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Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockford, as well Springfield, its capital. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area. Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural hubs in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Additionally, the Mississippi, Ohio, and W ...
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Fire Hazards
Fire safety is the set of practices intended to reduce the destruction caused by fire. Fire safety measures include those that are intended to prevent the ignition of an uncontrolled fire and those that are used to limit the development and effects of a fire after it starts. Fire safety measures include those that are planned during the construction of a building or implemented in structures that are already standing, and those that are taught to occupants of the building. Threats to fire safety are commonly referred to as fire hazards. A fire hazard may include a situation that increases the likelihood of a fire or may impede escape in the event a fire occurs. Fire safety is often a component of building safety. Those who inspect buildings for violations of the Fire Code and go into schools to educate children on fire safety topics are fire department members known as ''Fire Prevention Officers''. The Chief Fire Prevention Officer or Chief of Fire Prevention will normally t ...
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Convent
A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican Communion. Etymology and usage The term ''convent'' derives via Old French from Latin ''conventus'', perfect participle of the verb ''convenio'', meaning "to convene, to come together". It was first used in this sense when the eremitical life began to be combined with the cenobitical. The original reference was to the gathering of mendicants who spent much of their time travelling. Technically, a monastery is a secluded community of monastics, whereas a friary or convent is a community of mendicants (which, by contrast, might be located in a city), and a canonry is a community of canons regular. The terms abbey and priory can be applied to both monasteries and canonries; an abbey is headed by an abbot, and a priory is a lesser de ...
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Soundproofing
Soundproofing is any means of impeding sound propagation. There are several basic approaches to reducing sound: increasing the distance between source and receiver, decoupling, using noise barriers to reflect or absorb the energy of the sound waves, using damping structures such as sound baffles for absorption, or using active antinoise sound generators. Acoustic quieting and noise control can be used to limit unwanted noise. Soundproofing can reduce the transmission of unwanted direct sound waves from the source to an involuntary listener through the use of distance and intervening objects in the sound path (see sound transmission class and sound reduction index). Soundproofing can suppress unwanted indirect sound waves such as reflections that cause echoes and resonances that cause reverberation. Absorption Sound-absorbing material controls reverberant sound pressure levels within a cavity, enclosure or room. Synthetic absorption materials are porous, referring to ...
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Fire Sprinkler System
A fire sprinkler system is an active fire protection method, consisting of a water supply system, providing adequate pressure and flowrate to a water distribution piping system, onto which fire sprinklers are connected. Although historically only used in factories and large commercial buildings, systems for homes and small buildings are now available at a cost-effective price. Fire sprinkler systems are extensively used worldwide, with over 40 million sprinkler heads fitted each year. Even though Fire Sprinkler Systems are a Life Saving System and are not designed to protect the building, 96% of buildings that had fires and were completely protected by fire sprinkler systems were controlled by the fire sprinklers alone. History Leonardo da Vinci designed a sprinkler system in the 15th century. Leonardo automated his patron's kitchen with a super-oven and a system of conveyor belts. In a comedy of errors, everything went wrong during a huge banquet, and a fire broke out. "Th ...
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Fire Alarm System
A fire alarm system warns people when smoke, fire, carbon monoxide or other fire-related or general notification emergency, emergencies are detected. These alarms may be activated automatically from smoke detectors and heat detectors or may also be activated via manual fire alarm activation devices such as manual call points or pull stations. Alarms can be either motorized bells or wall mountable sounders or horns. They can also be speaker strobes which sound an alarm, followed by a voice evacuation message which warns people inside the building not to use the elevators. Fire alarm sounders can be set to certain frequencies and different tones including low, medium, and high, depending on the country and manufacturer of the device. Most fire alarm systems in Europe sound like a siren with alternating frequencies. Fire alarm electronic devices are known as horns in the United States and Canada and can be either continuous or set to different codes. Fire alarm warning devices can al ...
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Adlai Stevenson II
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (; February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965) was an American politician and diplomat who was twice the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He was the grandson of Adlai Stevenson I, the 23rd vice president of the United States. Raised in Bloomington, Illinois, Stevenson was a member of the Democratic Party. He served in numerous positions in the federal government during the 1930s and 1940s, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Federal Alcohol Administration, Department of the Navy, and the State Department. In 1945, he served on the committee that created the United Nations, and he was a member of the initial U.S. delegations to the UN. In 1948, he was elected governor of Illinois, defeating incumbent governor Dwight H. Green in an upset. As governor, he reformed the state police, cracked down on illegal gambling, improved the state highways, and attempted to cleanse the state government of corruption. Stevenson also ...
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Fires In Illinois
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames are produced. The ''flame'' is the visible portion of the fire. Flames consist primarily of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce Plasma (physics), plasma. Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the fire's Intensity (heat transfer), intensity will be different. Fire in its most common form can result in conflagration, which has the potential to cause physical damage through burning. Fire is an important process that affects ecological systems around the globe. The positive effects of fire include stimulating growth and maintaining various ecological systems. Its negative effects include hazard to life and pr ...
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1949 In Illinois
Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico. * January 11 – The first "networked" television broadcasts take place, as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes on the air, connecting east coast and mid-west programming in the United States. * January 16 – Şemsettin Günaltay forms the new government of Turkey. It is the 18th government, last single party government of the Republican People's Party. * January 17 – The first VW Type 1 to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought to New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his travel expenses. Only two 1949 models are sold in America tha ...
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