The first fire broke out in the original Main Building on October 31st, 1899. As it was, the damage came to $4 million. The resulting strong inward winds fueled the flames. The General Letter Office in Threadneedle Street, through which post passed for the entire country, burned down early on Monday morning. Motivated by a desire to destroy the city, Nero secretly sent out men pretending to be drunk to set fire to the city. [60], Hanson takes issue with the idea that there were only a few deaths, enumerating known deaths from hunger and exposure among survivors of the fire, "huddled in shacks or living among the ruins that had once been their homes" in the cold winter that followed, including, for instance, dramatist James Shirley and his wife. The section "Tuesday" is based on Tinniswood, 77–96. The Monument stands at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill in the City of London. However, it took some time until the last traces were put out: coal was still burning in cellars two months later. The inhabitants, especially the upper class, were growing desperate to remove their belongings from the City. [52] In this state of emergency, the King put his brother James, Duke of York, in charge of operations. All quotes from and details involving John Evelyn come from his. [45] The spread to the south was mostly halted by the river, but it had torched the houses on London Bridge and was threatening to cross the bridge and endanger the borough of Southwark on the south bank of the river. The Great Fire of Rome was a devastating fire in AD 64. [10], Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and historian of the Roman Empire. Share to Facebook. The Crown and the City authorities attempted to negotiate compensation for the large-scale remodelling that these plans entailed, but that unrealistic idea had to be abandoned. the great fire by Shirley Hazzard ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2003 Hazzard painstakingly constructs a compact panorama of a world ravaged by war, in her expert fourth novel—and first since the NBCC Award winner, The Transit of Venus (1980). On Charles' initiative, a Monument to the Great Fire of London was erected near Pudding Lane, designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, standing 61 metres (200 ft) tall. Hanson also maintains that "it stretches credulity to believe that the only papists or foreigners being beaten to death or lynched were the ones rescued by the Duke of York", that official figures say very little about the fate of the undocumented poor, and that the heat at the heart of the firestorms was far greater than an ordinary house fire, and was enough to consume bodies fully or leave only a few skeletal fragments. It was disordered, the streets… Nero watched from the Tower of Maecenas on the. Pedestrians with handcarts and goods were still on the move away from the fire, heavily weighed down. However, much of the work has been lost, including the books covering events after AD 70. Use the slideshow below to show pictures from the story of the famous people involved in The Great Fire of London. [23] Self-reliant community procedures were in place for dealing with fires, and they were usually effective. 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