The great fire of London

London is a big, busy city, with a history that goes back to ancient times. London was founded in
43 AD, when the Romans built a trading port on the river Thames near where London Bridge is today.
They called it Londinium, and made it the capital of the region of the Roman Empire called Britannia.
From 1500 onwards, London's 5 growth was rapid. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603),
London became an important world trading centre.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, two tragedies struck London. The Great Plague,
and the Great Fire of London. The Great Plague was a terrible epidemic that broke out in London in
1665. London suffered badly and fatalities exceeded 60,000. Then, on September 2nd 1666, things got
worse.

That doomed Sunday morning, a worker of Thomas Farynor, a baker, smelled smoke in his
master's bakery. The shop was on Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. Someone had simply failed to turn
off the oven. Who could believe that this careless mistake would lead to one of the most destructive
fires in history?

Within minutes, the houses which surrounded the bakery were also on fire. Because the houses
were made of timber, the fire spread very quickly. London didn't have the firefighting equipment it has
today. Instead, people used buckets and ladders to try to control the fire. As the fire raged, Londoners
realised that the only way it could be dealt with was to pull the buildings down in order to create a kind
of firebreak. The King issued an order to do just that. Sadly, it wasn't carried out quickly enough, and the
knocked down buildings just became extra fuel for the fire.

It didn't help that there was a strong wind blowing. The wind turned the flames into a roaring
fire. In desperation, gunpowder was used to demolish buildings faster. The fire was finally brought
under control after five days. It destroyed 84 churches, including the magnificent St Paul's Cathedral,
and 13,200 houses. Only four people were reported dead, but many more are believed to have been
killed by the fire.

The reason we know so much about the Great Fire of London is because of a man named Samuel
Pepys (1633-1703). He was an English civil servant who enjoyed keeping a diary of events in his personal
life, as well as events that took place around him. Pepys wrote about the Great Fire of London, as he
witnessed it himself.