TWA from Tuesday, September 5, 2017 “Letter to My Husband Far Away” by Gillian Wegener from This Sweet Haphazard. © Sixteen Rivers Press, 2017. ORIGINAL TEXT and AUDIO - 2017 The Great Fire of London ended on this date in 1666. The fire had started on September 2, in Pudding Lane near London Bridge, after a baker neglected to properly extinguish his oven. It had been a hot and dry summer, with no rain for weeks, and there was a strong wind that night. The city’s wooden buildings were dry as tinder, and the fire spread quickly from house to house along the narrow streets. King Charles II ordered all the buildings in the path of the fire to be torn down, to serve as a firebreak, but the flames spread faster than the demolition. Finally, officials from the Tower of London started blowing buildings up with gunpowder instead. The winds died down and the firebreaks were more effective, and the blaze was finally brought under control at Pye Corner in Smithfield. The fire wiped out four-fifths of London’s buildings, and left all but 10,000 of the city’s 80,000 residents homeless. The medieval buildings, which lay within the old Roman walls, were gutted.
I've read The Writer's Almanac every day for many years. It adds so much to my life. Thank you!
I've read The Writer's Almanac every day for many years. It adds so much to my life. Thank you!