Ringtheater fire

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Ringtheater fire

Ruins of the Viennese Ringtheater on 8 December 1881
Date	8 December 1881; 142 years ago (1881-12-08)
Time	Around 7:00 pm
Location	Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Cause	Gas explosion (caused by malfunctioning gas lamps) and subsequent ignition of theater curtains
Outcome	Viennese Ringtheater destroyed
Deaths	384–449
Convictions	Theater owner Franz von Jauner sentenced to three years of prison (later commuted to several weeks)

The Ringtheater fire occurred on 8 December 1881, in the popular Viennese Ringtheater, named after the road it was located at, the Schottenring. Before the fire, the privately run theater, with capacity for an audience of about 1700, had been suffering from financial problems. Officially, 384 people perished in the fire, though there are higher estimates. For example, the Prussian-born author and encyclopedian Ludwig Julius Eisenberg (1858–1910) claims that up to one thousand could have been killed.