cursor: pointer; Write for us | When London Faced a Pandemic—And a Devastating Fire. After the blaze, the city was built with brick and stone instead of wood, and legal reforms were introduced. In the 1670s, a memorial column commemorating the Great Fire of London was erected near the source of the calamity. The miners working in the Union Pacific coal mine had been struggling to unionize and strike for ...read more, President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope’s disaster at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, on August 29 and 30. Required fields are marked *. } The neighbours tried to help douse the fire; after an hour, the parish constables arrived and judged that the adjoining houses had better be demolished to prevent further spread. Narrow alleyways were forbidden and streets were made wider. The Great Fire of London … The Great Fire of London was not Thomas Farriner’s first brush with trouble. Ho Chi Minh had been the heart and soul of Vietnamese communism since the earliest days of the movement. To prevent future fires, most new houses were built of brick or stone and separated by thicker walls. 1,606 – the number of years prior to the Great Fire that London was first destroyed by fire. Surprisingly, only six people have been recorded to have died from the Great Fire … The column stands 202 feet above the pavement and features sculpture and engravings that tell the story of the conflagration. As the conflagration grew, city authorities struggled to tear down buildings and create a firebreak, but the flames repeatedly overtook them before they could complete their work. Some of the poorer houses had walls covered with tar, which kept out the rain but made the structures more vulnerable to fire. • Local London residents originally thought that the fire had been started by foreign immigrants. The great architect Sir Christopher Wren designed a new St. Paul’s Cathedral with dozens of smaller new churches ranged around it like satellites. Nyad completed the 110-mile swim from Havana to Key West, through the jellyfish-and shark-infested waters of the Straits of Florida, ...read more, Pop star Michael Jackson's song “You Are Not Alone” reaches number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100—his 12th #1 hit. In the early morning hours, the Great Fire of London breaks out in the house of King Charles II’s baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. } Jackson’s incredible run of chart-topping hits began in 1972 with the release of his fifth single, “Ben,” from the motion picture of the same name. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a maidservant who was too frightened to try, who became the first victim. Declaration of Independence in declaring, “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, ...read more, At the Battle of Actium, off the western coast of Greece, Roman leader Octavian wins a decisive victory against the forces of Roman Mark Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. display: inline-block; London of 1666 was a city of medieval houses made mostly of oak timber. The Great Fire of 1666 was not the first time London had witnessed major conflagrations. vertical-align: middle; Citizens were instructed to check their homes for possible dangers, but there were many instances of carelessness. Bucket-bearing locals abandoned their futile efforts at firefighting and rushed home to evacuate their families and save their valuables. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, saw much of his army transferred ...read more, The United States Treasury Department is founded on September 2, 1789. Even though an official inquiry into the Great Fire concluded that “the hand of God, a great wind, and a very dry season” caused it, an inscription on the Memorial (removed in 1830) blamed the disaster on the “treachery and malice of the Popish faction.”. President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam dies of a heart attack in Hanoi. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Most of the people in the house were able to clamber to safety. font-size: 14px; Permanent fire departments, however, did not become a fixture in London until well into the 18th century. In 1627, the then 10- or … Facts | History, London | 11 Facts about The Great Fire of London The Puddling Lane house of Thomas Farriner is where the fire started. } In A.D. 60, Queen Boudicca and her Iceni tribe burned the Roman city of Londinium. a.facebook-find { margin-right: 1rem; The city of 500,000 people … • The Fire started at a bakery on Pudding Lane owned by Thomas Farriner. These stores lit aflame or exploded, transforming the fire into an uncontrollable blaze. ATMs went on to revolutionize the banking industry, eliminating the need to visit a bank to conduct basic ...read more. The Great Fire of London engulfed 13,000 houses, nearly 90 churches, and scores of public buildings. background-repeat: no-repeat; Privacy Policy | That evening, flames again burst forth in the Temple (the legal district), but the explosion of buildings with gunpowder extinguished the flames. vertical-align: middle; background-image: url('/wp-content/themes/cassiopeia/assets/icons/facebook-icon.svg'); London had already burned several times in its history, most notably in 1212, but in September 1666 the conditions were present for an inferno of epic proportions. It is believed a spark from the oven had fallen into a pile of fuel at 1 am in the morning. When the Great Fire finally was extinguished on September 6, more than four-fifths of London was destroyed.