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On January 15, 1919, a tank containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses weighing an estimated 26 million pounds burst open, unleashing a sticky flood onto Boston's North End. The 25-foot high wave of goo oozed over the streets at 35 miles per hour, crushing buildings in its wake and killing 21 people. The wave broke steel girders of the Boston Elevated Railway, almost swept a train off its tracks, knocked buildings off their foundations, and toppled electrical poles, the wires hissing and sparking as they fell into the brown flood. The Boston Globe reported that people 'were picked up and...

“A dull muffled roar gave but an instant’s warning before the top of the tank was blown into the air,” The New York Times wrote in 1919. “Two million gallons of molasses rushed over the streets and converted into a sticky mass the wreckage of several small buildings which had been smashed by the force of the explosion.”

Yesterday was the 92nd anniversary of one of the strangest tragedies ever to take place on American soil. It's the stuff of Weekly World News or The Onion. Yet it was a very real, deadly, (and delicious) disaster. To this day on hot summer days in an old Boston neighborhood, residents swear that they can smell a vague odor of molasses. It's a sweet-smelling reminder of a day when some 150 people were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed by a sudden flood of molasses... Purity Distilling Company was doing big business. A large quantity of stored molasses...

Yes there really was a flood of molasses in Boston in the early 18th century, and as improbable as it seems, the reality is horrifying. And yes, sometimes a woman is so dumb she's married to a killer and doesn't know it. Reviews of "Dark Tide" and "Mafia Wife"…both older books but worth a new look. HERE FOR REVIEWS