Disasters, calamities, tragedies, or catastrophes—no matter what we call them, these events happen on a regular basis, and more recent occurrences tend to cancel out memories of the older ones. However, the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City has not been forgotten, as its 100-year anniversary this spring prompted public media to recall the horrific event. Perhaps it was because many of the deaths resembled those of the disaster on Sept. 11, 2001, when trapped victims jumped or fell to their fate rather than perish in the flames.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were, by far, the worse of the two disasters, resulting in far more deaths and far greater destruction. It was the Triangle Factory fire, however, that led to the greatest changes of the early 20th century as politicians began to look more closely at the sweatshops and child labor that were rampant across the nation. Ultimately, however, very little has changed. Eighty years later, on Sept. 3, 1991, 25 people were burned to death and 49 injured in a Hamlet, N.C. chicken processing plant where, as in the Triangle fire, exits were either locked or blocked.

It was not until after the Nov. 28, 1942 fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston that fire safety doors became a requirement in public places, opening to the outside so that victims would not be trapped and trampled. The fire codes of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) would seem to be sufficient, yet hardly a year passes without some fire-related tragedy involving locked or barricaded doors, a deadly impediment often initiated by management to prevent wrongful entry or keeping patrons from exiting without paying a bill. Blocked doors were a factor in the Southgate, Ky. Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in May of 1977 that killed some 160 patrons and injured many more. Then, on Feb. 20, 2003, 100 people died after a lack of exterior doors prevented their escape from a fire at Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I.