September 2

You might want to consider the following the next time you use the top-brown setting on your toaster oven. Thomas Farriner was a baker who plied his trade in a building on Pudding Lane in London, England. On the 2nd in 1666, London was in the midst of a storm whose defining features were high winds but very little rain. At 2:00 a.m., a fire[i] broke out in Farriner’s bakery. Fed by the high winds the fire raged uncontrollably for three days until almost the entire city had been consumed by the flames. Surprisingly not many people died but the greater part of London was burned to the ground. Initially, Farriner was suspected of having set the fire but he was cleared of the charges when Robert Hubert confessed to the arson[ii]. It would take London decades to recover. The fire did however give restoration England the opportunity to rebuild the city in what would become the most extensive urban renewal project of all time, securing Christopher Wren[iii]’s place in the history of architectural innovation.
[i] The fire that virtually destroyed London was hot enough to melt the iron locks and gates to the city and the steel laying about on the piers. Steel has a melting point of 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.
[ii] Robert Hubert, described by contemporary reports as being a ‘simple minded French clockmaker’, confessed to authorities that he was an agent of the Pope and that he had set the fire that burned London to the ground. Despite ample evidence that Hubert was indeed out of his mind, and that he had not even been in the country when the fire started, a court convicted him and he was hanged on September 28, 1666
[iii] In addition to Wren’s most famous building, St. Paul’s Cathedral, he also built 50 smaller churches following the fire.