A nightclub fire that killed 492 people rewrote America's fire codes overnight

On 28 November 1942, fire raced through Boston's overcrowded Cocoanut Grove nightclub in minutes, killing 492 people trapped behind doors that opened inward and a jammed revolving door. The disaster forced sweeping reforms nationwide: outward-swinging exits with panic bars, mandatory sprinklers, and bans on flammable decorations. Burn treatments pioneered on survivors, including early plasma and penicillin use, later saved wounded soldiers in WWII.

— John C. Esposito, Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and Its Aftermath — 2005
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