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Chronicling the devastating Strand Theatre Fire of 1941 and celebrating the community's heroes and resilience in the face of adversity.

On March 10, 1941, at 12:38 a.m., the Brockton Fire Department responded to Fire Alarm Box 1311, which was pulled for a fire at the Strand Theatre. Fire Alarm dispatched the deputy chief, three engine companies, a ladder company and Squad A. Within six minutes, a second alarm was struck. Less than one hour after the first alarm, the roof of the Strand collapsed, and what appeared to be a routine fire turned into a disaster that killed 13 firefighters and injured more than 20 others. The disaster marks one of the largest losses of life to firefighters from a burning building collapse in the United States.

On the night of November 26, 1898, with a killer storm of historic proportions approaching, the steamer Portland set out from Boston. By the following night, the winter hurricane sent the vessel to the depths of Massachusetts Bay off Cape Cod, claiming nearly two hundred lives. On the Cape, a few dozen victims of the Portland disaster washed ashore, while ships piled up in harbors, high tides swept away railroad tracks, and the landscape and beaches were changed forever. Several Cape Cod mariners went to sea and never returned, caught in the gale's evil clutches. Local author Don Wilding revisits this disaster and the heroic deeds of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and the Cape's citizenry in what came to be known as "The Portland Gale."

Get a first-hand account and fascinating new details of the story behind The Finest Hours, the film portraying the harrowing rescue of the SS Pendleton in 1952.

On February 18, 1952, off the coast of Cape Cod, a fierce nor'easter snapped in half two 503-foot oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer. Human grace and grit, leadership and endurance prevail as Theresa Mitchell Barbo and Captain W. Russell Webster (Ret.) recount the historic, heroic rescue of thirty-two merchant mariners from the sinking Pendleton by four young Coast Guardsmen aboard the 36-foot motor lifeboat CG36500. A foreword by former Commandant Admiral Thad Allen (Ret.) and an essay by Master Chief John ""Jack"" Downey (Ret.), a veteran of thousands of modern-day small boat rescues, round out the special third edition of this classic work on Coast Guard history.

The destruction was unimaginable. Workers in nearby factories watched with horror as the Pemberton Mill buckled and then collapsed, trapping more than six hundred workers, many of them women and children. Word of the disaster spread quickly and volunteers rushed to the scene. As survivors called out for help, a lantern fell, and within minutes fire engulfed the building, burning those trapped inside. It took days for rescuers to complete the grim task of removing the charred bodies of the dead. Alvin F. Oickle's riveting account illustrates why, nearly a century and a half later, the Pemberton collapse is still considered one of the worst industrial calamities in American history.

The peninsular community of Hull, Massachusetts, reaches a total of seven thin, sandy miles into Boston Harbor, forming a protective barrier against intruding navies and pounding waves. Unfortunately for those residents who choose to live here for the three miles of crescent-shaped beach and its attendant summer advantages, exposure to the sea during the winter months can be, at times, trying, to say the least. When Hull Freezes Over, by lifelong Hull resident and columnist John Galluzzo, is a collection of historic tales that look beyond the sunny days of summer and remember the other nine months of life along this scenic shore. From shipwrecks and drownings, to subzero temperatures and frigid arctic gales, locals have learned to enjoy their seasonal solitude, and especially enjoy the holiday season in ways only New England peninsula dwellers can.

On a hot day in June 1914, a fire broke out in a leather factory a mile away from the heart of downtown Salem. Despite the efforts of local firefighters and volunteers from communities as far away as Boston, residents watched helplessly as flames leapt from rooftop to rooftop. By the time the fire finally extinguished itself in the Atlantic Ocean, it had destroyed hundreds of acres of property, damaged over a thousand buildings and left more than twenty thousand people homeless. Makeshift tent cities sprung up on Salem Common and in Forest River Park. This collection of historic photos from the Phillips Library depicts the city before the fire, the conflagration itself and the people of Salem's united effort to rebuild and rise triumphant from the ashes.