The name Niagara Falls is derived from a native American word that means “a thundering noise.” You can imagine the surprise of area residents, therefore, when, just after midnight on March 30, 1848, the thunder suddenly stopped.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.