History of Chicago and south branches of the Chicago River, which flows through the city's downtown. The three white stripes represent the North, West and South sides of the city, Lake Michigan being the east side. The most famous and serious disaster was the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. On December 30, 1903 the "absolutely fireproof", five-week-old Iroquois Theater was engulfed by fire. The fire lasted less than thirty minutes; 602 people died as a result of being burned, asphyxiated, or trampled. The S.S. "Eastland" was a cruise ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On 24 July 1915—a calm, sunny day—the
Chicago in the 1930s was completed and enrolled its first medical students, and also at the same time the Committee on Social Thought was created. On 22 July 1934, John Dillinger was shot by the FBI in the alley next to the Biograph Theater. On January 19, 1935, Coopers Inc. sold the world's first briefs. In 1935, Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago was awarded the very first Heisman Trophy. In 1934, a major fire broke out at the Chicago Union Stock Yard, the second major fire in its history after the 1910 fire. Masses of blacks migrated to the city from the