The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster, was one of the strangest industrial accidents in American history. On that fateful day, a 15-meter-high steel tank at 529 Commercial Street, containing over 2.3 million gallons (around 9 million liters) of molasses, ruptured catastrophically. The explosion sent a wave of dark, sticky syrup surging through the streets of Boston’s North End, a densely populated and primarily working-class neighborhood.

During the Prohibition era (1920–1933) in the United States, the federal government undertook a drastic and highly controversial approach to deter illegal drinking. Known as the "poisoned alcohol program," this policy involved intentionally contaminating industrial alcohol with toxic chemicals to discourage its consumption by bootleggers and the general public.