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
Theater in Chicago in the country to have five theaters so honored. The Goodman Theatre had existed for a number of years with a reputation as a home for revivals, but the arrival of artistic director William Woodman and his assistant Gregory Mosher changed its profile. When Mosher took over as artistic director he enhanced the Goodman's reputation largely due to the work of David Mamet whose play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" had been Mamet's first success at the Organic Theater Company in 1974. Mosher later produced and directed "American Buffalo" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" at the Goodman. The Goodman Theatre also was