On the sultry Thursday afternoon of Jul. 6, 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut, approximately 8,600 persons, most of them women and children, entered the Big Top tent of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus to watch the performance. Shortly after the show began, a small fire broke out along the side of the Big Top, and quickly spread to the roof of the canvas tent, which had been waterproofed with paraffin thinned with white gasoline. One small blonde child, about 6 years old, and identified only with the coroner's number 1565, was never identified despite a complete lack of burns and no damage to her face.
