Did You Know?
In the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, the cathedral of St. Paul and left 70,000 homeless, only 6 people were killed.
In the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, the cathedral of St. Paul and left 70,000 homeless, only 6 people were killed.
The Great Fire of London swept through the central parts of the English city from Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 6 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. It threatened but did not reach the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles II's Palace of Whitehall, or most of the suburban slums. It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the city's 80,000 inhabitants.
The death toll is unknown but was traditionally thought to have been small, as only six verified deaths were recorded. This reasoning has recently been challenged on the grounds that the deaths of poor and middle-class people were not recorded; moreover, the heat of the fire may have cremated many victims, leaving no recognisable remains. A melted piece of pottery on display at the Museum of London found by archaeologists in Pudding Lane, where the fire started, shows that the temperature reached 1,250 °C (2,280 °F; 1,520 K).
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