Timeline of New York City disasters

• 1776 September 21 - Approximately 1000 houses, a quarter of the city, are destroyed in a fire a week after British troops captured the city during the American Revolution. Arson is speculated.
• 1796 December 9 - About 50 structures destroyed by fire near Murray Wharf.
• 1798 - A yellow fever epidemic kills over 2000 people from late July to November. Other such epidemics hit the city in 1795, 1803, 1822 and other years, but this was the worst of them all.
• 1811 May 19 - Close to 100 buildings burn down on Chatham Street.
• 1835 December 16 - 530 buildings destroyed by fire.
• July 11-13, 1863 - Approximately 50,000 people riot in protest of President Lincoln's announcement of a draft for troops to fight in the civil war.
• 1876 December 5 - Brooklyn Theater fire kills 300 people.
• March 12-13, 1888 - A record blizzard known as the "The Great White Hurricane" drops 21 inches of snow on the city. An estimated 800 people die.
• 1896 August 5-August 13 - A heat wave prostrates the city, with temperatures exceeding 90°F for nine days both day and night, with stagnant air and oppressive humidity. About 420 people die, mostly in tenements in areas such as the Lower East Side.
• June 14, 1904 - The General Slocum catches fire while cruising the East River. Over 1000 passengers are killed.
• June 25, 1906 - Stanford White is shot and killed by Harry K. Thaw. The murder would soon be dubbed "the Crime of the Century".
• March 25, 1911 - 145 employees, mostly women, are killed in the Triangle Factory fire.
• 1918 - The Great Influenza rages across the country. In one particualrly virulent October day, 851 people die in New York City alone.
• November 16, 1940 - George Metesky plants the first bomb of his sixteen years as "The Mad Bomber".
• July 28, 1945 - A B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 13 people.
• 1960 December 16 - Collision between TWA and United Airlines passenger planes, with one plane crashing in Staten Island and the other in Brooklyn. A total of 133 people are killed.
• March 13, 1964 - Kitty Genovese is stabbed to death. The crime is witnessed by dozens of people, none of whom aid Genovese or call for help.
• November 9, 1965 - New York City is affected as part of the Northeast Blackout of 1965.
• July 29, 1976 - David Berkowitz (aka the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the next year
• July 13-14, 1977 - New York City again loses power in a blackout. Unlike the previous blackout twelve years earlier, this blackout is followed by widespread rioting and looting.
• December 8, 1980 - John Lennon is killed in front of his home, The Dakota building.
• December 22, 1984 - Bernhard Goetz shoots four men on a subway who tried to rob him.
• April 14, 1989 - Trisha Meili (aka the Central Park Jogger) is violently raped and beaten while jogging in Central Park. The crime is later attributed to a group of young men who were practicing an activity they called "wilding". However, DNA evidence later proved the originally charged teens innocent; a convicted serial rapist confessed to the crime.
• February 26, 1993 - A bomb planted by terrorists explodes in the World Trade Center's underground garage, killing six people and injuring over a thousand. See: World Trade Center bombing
• December 7, 1993 - Colin Ferguson shoots 25 passengers on a Long Island commuter train out of Penn Station.
• July 17, 1996 - TWA Flight 800 departs Kennedy airport and crashes in Long Island Sound. Some people allege the plane was struck by a missile.
• September 2, 1998 - Swissair Flight 111 departs Kennedy airport and crashes off of the coast of Nova Scotia.
• October 31, 1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 departs Kennedy airport and crashes off of the coast of Nantucket.
• September 11, 2001 - The World Trade Center towers and several surrounding buildings are destroyed by a terrorist attack. In early 2004, the count of the dead is set at 2749 people.
• November 12, 2001 - American Airlines Flight 587 crashes into Queens shortly after takeoff from Kennedy airport.
• 23 July 2003 - 31-year-old Othniel Askew, a Brooklyn resident and political rival of City Councilmember James E. Davis, fired multiple gunshots in the City Hall chambers of the New York City Council, killing Davis. New York City Police Officer Richard Burt, who was on a special security detail in the Council Chamber, shot and killed Askew. According to news reports, Askew appeared at Councilmember Davis's Brooklyn office and drove with him to the New York City Hall. The security guards permitted both men to circumvent the security posts. (Under an agreement between the City and the City Council, councilmembers and their staff and guests were allowed to enter the building without a security check.) Since the shooting, however, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that everyone (including himself) wishing to enter City Hall must go through the security checkpoints.
• August 14, 2003 - New York loses power in a blackout that affects eight states as well as in parts of Canada.
• October 15, 2003 - At about 3:30 pm, the Staten Island Ferry boat the Andrew J. Barberi collided with a pier on the eastern end of the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island killing at least ten people, seriously injuring many others, and tearing a huge slash through the lowest of the three passenger decks. It is the worst mass transit disaster in New York City in over a century.

• See also History of New York City.