who was blamed for the great chicago fire
Great Chicago Fire The fire started at about 9:00 p.m. on October 8, in or around a small barn belonging to the O'Leary family that bordered the alley behind 137 DeKoven Street.[3] The shed next to the barn was the first building to be consumed by the fire, but city officials never determined the exact cause of the blaze.[4] There has, however, been much speculation over the years. The most popular tale blames Mrs. O'Leary's cow, who allegedly knocked over a lantern; others state that a group of men were gambling inside the barn and knocked over a lantern.[5] Still other speculation suggests that the blaze was related to other fires in the Midwest that day.[1]
Reichstag fire In February 1933, three men were arrested who were to play pivotal roles during the Leipzig Trial, known also as the "Reichstag Fire Trial": Bulgarians Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev and Blagoy Popov. The Bulgarians were known to the Prussian police as senior Comintern operatives, but the police had no idea how senior they were: Dimitrov was head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe. The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains an ongoing topic of debate and research.[3][4] Historians disagree as to whether van der Lubbe acted alone, as he said, to protest the condition of the German working class. The Nazis accused the Comintern of the act. Some historians endorse the theory, initially proposed by the Communist Party, that the arson was planned and ordered by the Nazis as a false flag operation.[5][6][7] The building remained in its fire-damaged state until it was partially repaired from 1961 to 1964, then completely restored from 1995 to 1999.