Great Molasses Flood
Ships brought molasses to Boston from the sugar farms in the Caribbean Sea.  In Boston, people made rum out of molasses in factories called distilleries.  But the molasses had to be stored until rum makers were ready.  This was right before alcohol would become illegal in the United States, so people wanted to make and sell rum while they still could.  One company, U.S. Industrial Alcohol, put their molasses in a 50-foot (15-meter) steel tank at 529 Commercial Street in Boston's North End neighborhood.