In this week's SYSK Select episode, Josh and Chuck find who's probably to blame for the Great Chicago Fire. The newspapers of the day reported that a cow (or perhaps its owner) was responsible for a fire that burned half of Chicago in 1871. Yet in 1997 Mrs. O'Leary and her cow were exonerated.
# Stuff You Should Know: The Great Chicago Fire
Forget everything you think you know about how the Great Chicago Fire started—this episode demolishes the legendary tale of Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. Chuck and Josh dive deep into one of America's worst disasters, exploring how a massive wooden city in 1871 became a tinderbox and what really sparked the inferno that killed 300 people and left nearly 100,000 homeless. Along the way, they investigate a parade of suspects (including a peg-legged man with a suspiciously detailed alibi) and uncover how a Chicago Tribune reporter literally invented the cow story out of thin air—proving that sometimes the most enduring historical myths are just really good fiction that nobody bothered to fact-check.
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