The cleanup of the bodies took about ten days, and since most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition, they were placed in a mass grave at the Cementerio General de Santiago. A Santiago newspaper printed the names of over 2,000 known victims, and the same paper also printed a list of the objects saved by the priests and their value, which led to public outcry against the priests who had saved valuable objects but not people.
The tragedy, and the fact that one of the contributing factors was the lack of an organized fire-brigade, motivated José Luis Claro y Cruz to organize the first Volunteer Firemen's Corps in Santiago, on December 20 of the same year. Fire brigades in Chile, even today, are still made up only of unpaid volunteers. New fire regulations also resulted, and the tragedy contributed to the partial secularization of Chilean government over the next two decades.
1931 China floods
The 1931 China floods or the 1931 Yellow River Floods were a series of floods that occurred in China in the year 1931. It is the most deadly natural disaster by death toll. About 1,000,000-3.7 million people were said to be dead in this series of floods.
In the period of 1928-30 China faced a severe drought. Due to some abnormal weather conditions heavy snowstorms and heavy rainfall occurred in parts of central China. The water levels increased in the rivers. The rain grew heavier in July and August in 1931. China faced nine cyclones in July 1931 alone.
Chinese sources say 1,000,000 died due to the overflow of the Yangtze River. Western sources say a death toll of 3.7 million-4 million people. In July alone, four weather stations along the Yangtze River reported rain totaling over for the month.
The Yangtze and Huai River floods soon reached Nanjing, the capital of China at the time. The city, located on an island in a massive flood zone, suffered catastrophic damage. Millions died of drowning while some died due to starvation, from waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhus. The high-water mark was reached on 19 August at Hankou town in Wuhan, with the water level exceeding above normal. On the evening of 25 August 1931, the water rushing through the Grand Canal washed away dikes near Gaoyou Lake. Some 200,000 people drowned in their sleep in the resulting deluge.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is an American progressive rock group. They were founded around 1996. They became popular around 1999. This was when they began touring with their second studio album, "The Christmas Attic".
Both "Billboard Magazine" and "Pollstar" ranked them as one of the top ticket-selling groups in the first decade of the new millennium.
Great Chinese Famine
Great Chinese Famine was a great famine in China from 1958-1961. Drought, poor weather and some of the policies of the Communist Party of China were among the reasons of the Great three years of Famine. This also further resulted in the Great Leap Forward movement.
According to the government's statistics the total death toll is 15 million people. Historian Frank Dikotter, having been granted special access to Chinese archival materials, estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths from 1958 to 1962, although far from all these deaths came about as a result of starvation.
Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng concluded there were 36 million deaths due to starvation, while another 40 million others failed to be born, so that "China's total population loss during the Great Famine then comes to 76 million.
The great Chinese famine was caused by a combination of adverse weather conditions, social pressure, economic mismanagement, and radical changes in agriculture imposed by government regulations.
Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese communist party, introduced drastic changes in farming which prohibited farm ownership. Failure to abide by the policies led to persecution. The social pressure imposed on the citizens in terms of farming and business, which the government controlled, led to state instability. Owing to the laws passed during the period and Great Leap Forward during 1958–1962, according to government statistics, about 36 million people died in this period.
Confederate States Navy
The Navy of the Confederate States (CSN) was the Navy of the Confederate States of America. After the Confederacy established itself in 1861, the elected president, Jefferson Davis appointed Stephen Mallory as his Secretary of the Confederate Navy. At the time the South had no ships capable of challenging the United States Navy's frigates. It did not have the shipbuilding capability or the raw materials necessary to build a navy. While they had limited resources, and did not have the firepower of the Union Navy, they developed a number of technologies. The Confederates developed naval mines, ironclad techniques and managed to sink a Union warship with a working submarine.
The Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, won the 1860 presidential election. Southerners were outraged by the election of Lincoln, who opposed slavery in territories and new states. After the election seven Southern states seceded and declared their independence from the Union. They formed the Confederate States of America, even before Lincoln became president on March 4, 1861. The outgoing U.S. president, James Buchanan, said this was against the law, but did nothing to stop them. Lincoln and his Republican party treated this secession as a rebellion.
Fighting started when the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter, a Union Army fort. Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for a period of 90 days. He also set up a blockade of the Southern coast and ports. Lincoln had no more than 40 usable warships and needed to start building up his Navy. This was to prevent the South from exporting its cotton and importing the war materials they needed to wage war. The North also needed to develop a fleet of gunboats for a "brown-water navy". This was to support the Union Army in operations around major rivers like the Mississippi.
In 1861, Virginia joined the Confederate States of America. Fearing that the Confederacy would take control of the facility, the shipyard commander Charles Stewart McCauley ordered the burning of the shipyard. At the time it was called the Gosport Navy Yard. Despite conflicting orders from the Secretary of the Navy, the resignation of many of his officers, and most of his yard workers leaving, his remaining men began destroying the shipyard. Ships that could not leave on their own were burned. This included the Union warship "USS "Merrimack"". Finally the two men who were placing explosives to blow up the dry dock were captured before they could finish their work. The Confederates were able to repair Gosport and make it a working shipyard again.
The capture of the shipyard allowed a tremendous amount of war material to fall into Confederate hands. In all, 1,195 heavy guns were taken and used by the Confederacy. They were used in many areas from Hampton Roads all the way to Fort Donelson Tennessee. When they left the shipyard, the Union forces withdrew to Fort Monroe across Hampton Roads. This was the only land in the area which remained under Union control.