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There's only a half an hour before the end of the school day, and your teacher is working through her final lesson - geography, geometry, Shakespeare. Then you think you smell something - a whiff of smoke. The room starts to warm up. In only a few short minutes, you and the rest of your classmates find yourself with a horrific choice - burn to death, or leap down to the pavement below? The young students of Our Lady of the Angels Catholic elementary school in Chicago, IL, faced that very decision on the first day of December in 1958.
By Jennifer Matarese4
778778 ratings
There's only a half an hour before the end of the school day, and your teacher is working through her final lesson - geography, geometry, Shakespeare. Then you think you smell something - a whiff of smoke. The room starts to warm up. In only a few short minutes, you and the rest of your classmates find yourself with a horrific choice - burn to death, or leap down to the pavement below? The young students of Our Lady of the Angels Catholic elementary school in Chicago, IL, faced that very decision on the first day of December in 1958.

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