{"id":413227,"date":"2026-01-14T22:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T22:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/413227\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T22:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T22:17:10","slug":"today-in-history-january-15-bizarre-explosion-made-entire-city-sticky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/413227\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History &#8211; January 15: Bizarre explosion made entire city sticky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured when a giant tank filled with molasses exploded in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/national\/no-aust-victims-reported-in-boston-dfat\/db2b025b-9595-46bd-b000-e47cf6aed1fa\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Boston\">Boston<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/world\/today-in-history-january-15-on-this-day\/90fa89d2-e1de-4872-96c4-518f5f255932\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"January 15, 1919\">January 15, 1919<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 15m-high tank was filled with an estimated 8700 cubic metres of molasses, a sticky and dense liquid used to make ethanol.<\/p>\n<p>Just after midday the tank exploded, sending a massive wave of the liquid down the streets of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/national\/no-aust-victims-reported-in-boston-dfat\/db2b025b-9595-46bd-b000-e47cf6aed1fa\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"the city\">the city<\/a>.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/58c888ea-f7c0-4a39-a602-667bafa2114c.jpeg\"   alt=\"\"\/>The force of the wave of molasses was strong enough to bend steel. (Public Domain)<\/p>\n<p>Bostonians heard either a powerful rumble or a loud bang, with the rivets from the tank pinging like a machine gun.<\/p>\n<p>At its peak, the wave was 8m high and moved at about 56km\/h.<\/p>\n<p>Because of its density and sheer volume, the molasses was powerful enough to bend girders of the Boston Elevated Railway.<\/p>\n<p>Houses in the path of the flood &#8220;seemed to cringe up as though they were made of pasteboard&#8221;, one reporter wrote.<\/p>\n<p>And the thickness of the molasses made it too difficult for many caught in the wave to swim to the surface.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/84d793ab-5419-48a4-abf3-0071812ef04b.jpeg\"   alt=\"Rivets popped off the tank like machine gun bullets, witnesses said.\"\/>Rivets popped off the tank like machine gun bullets, witnesses said. (Boston Public Library)<\/p>\n<p>When the molasses settled, it became thicker, trapping those caught.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the victims would not be found for months afterwards after being swept into the harbour.<\/p>\n<p>The streets were washed with salt water and covered in sand, but the movement of people around the city spread the stickiness.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everything a Bostonian touched was sticky,&#8221; Smithsonian magazine wrote.<\/p>\n<p>For months Boston Harbor was brown as the molasses settled on the sea bed.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of the explosion has been hard to determine. <\/p>\n<p>One theory is that the fermentation of the molasses led to a massive build-up of carbon dioxide in the tank.<\/p>\n<p>Another is that rapid temperature changes led to the blast. <\/p>\n<p>Warmer molasses had been pumped into the tank atop cooler molasses earlier that day.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/c7ee130e-cdb9-4608-b112-e31f27936218.jpeg\"   alt=\"A newspaper from the following day described the carnage.\"\/>A newspaper from the following day described the carnage. (Boston Post)<\/p>\n<p>The temperature had also risen quickly that day from well below freezing to 4 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n<p>More than 100 lawsuits were filed against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company, and they paid as much as $US27 million in settlements.<\/p>\n<p>Locals said that on hot days, they could still smell the molasses in Boston for decades afterwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured when a giant tank filled with molasses exploded in Boston on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-413227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}