In the 19th and early 20th centuries, panics caused by false shouts of "fire" in crowded theaters and other venues were not uncommon.[4] Most notably, the Canonsburg Opera House disaster of 1911 led to 26 deaths, and the 1913 Italian Hall disaster saw 73 people die in the crush that ensued from a false alarm in a crowded banquet hall.[5]

The problem was widespread enough that the person falsely shouting "fire" became a stock character in popular writing, representing an example of foolish or villainous behavior.[6]

An interesting detail about the Canonsburg disaster:

Of those killed, ... one audience member ..., according to eyewitness accounts, escaped the theater, ran across the street and died. The man had escaped by running across the heads and faces of the trapped victims as they were being crushed. He had also pushed a phonograph machine through a transom window where it and a shower of broken glass landed on rescue workers.[8] He then crossed the street and died from some combination of panic-related health complications and injuries he incurred while being physically assaulted by onlooking townspeople.