When you first hear the details behind the 1913 Italian Hall Disaster, the tragedy seems too terrible to be real. Imagine a crowded Christmas Eve party inside a large social hall at the heart of the Upper Peninsula's Copper Country. Most of the guests are union miners' families, glad for some holiday cheer because they're five months into a labor strike.

Someone falsely yells "Fire!" and hundreds of people on the second floor panic, causing a stampede down a steep stairwell as they all try to get outside.Seventy-three people died on the stairs, 59 of them children. The youngest was just 2. There was never any fire.