Throughout history, fires have led to radical changes in population patterns, infrastructure and the course of world events. Here are seven fires that changed history.
1. The burning of the great library of Alexandria
The Library of Alexandria was part of the Mouseion (“Temple of the Muses”) in Alexandria. It contained untold wealth: knowledge of the ancient world, stored in half a million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt and India. Academics from all over the world have come here to study and work, including Euclid and Ptolemy. The library was built during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, general of Alexander the Great and founder of Ptolemaic Egypt, in 283 BC.
The destruction of the library was so dramatic that it was immortalized by the playwrights of William Shakespeare – “Play conqueror whatever you want, mighty Caesar … But neither you nor any other barbarian has the right to destroy a human thought! ” – to Tom Stoppard: “The enemy… burned down the great library of Alexandria without even a fine for anything late!”
The fire that destroyed it is shrouded in controversy. Plutarch claims Julius Caesar started the fire when he set his ships on fire in the port while trying to wrest control of the city in 48 BC Most researchers believe a branch of the library survived in the temple of Serapeum, to be destroyed in 391 BC. by Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, and his Christian followers, who later built a church on the site. No matter who is to blame, priceless scrolls of ancient knowledge have been lost to history forever.
READ MORE: 8 Legendary Ancient Libraries
2. The Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London, 1666. Saint Paul’s Cathedral is represented engulfed by flames near Tower Wharf.
Museum of London / Heritage Images / Getty Images
The 2020 California wildfires aren’t the first conflagration to strike during a pandemic; The Great Fire of London swept through the city during the Black Death and destroyed more than 13,000 homes, leaving 100,000 people homeless. From September 2 to 6, 1666, the fire devastated most of the medieval town and damaged iconic buildings such as Saint Paul’s Cathedral. People fled with as many belongings as they could wear, including columnist Samuel Pepys, who escaped at 4 am in his nightshirt in a wagon, writing, “Lord! to see how the streets and highways are crowded with people running and driving, and who in any case get carts to pick up things.
Rebuilding London took more than 30 years, but Sir Christopher Wren’s town planning can still be seen today in the city’s stone buildings and wider streets, which replaced the narrow lanes and wooden structures that the fire had called for. The London fire also spawned two new industries: modern property insurance and firefighters.
READ MORE: When London faced a pandemic and devastating fire
3. The Great Fire of New York
New York City buildings, from the Exchange Place perspective, in ruins after a fire destroyed much of the Lower East Side, 1835.
Kean Collection / Getty Images
The Great Fire of 1835 occurred in the midst of a cholera epidemic in New York City. On the extremely cold night of December 16, 1835, a downtown warehouse caught fire. Strong winds fanned the flames, leveling more than 17 city blocks and setting a part of the frozen East River on fire as turpentine spilled from the warehouses onto the water.
Unfortunately, the city’s water supply was insufficient to slow down the destruction. New York’s population had grown by 60% over the past decade thanks to robust trade along the Erie Canal, and access to adequate sanitation and clean water was lacking.
From the ashes sprang the innovation: the construction of the Croton Aqueduct in May 1837. “It brought in 12 million gallons per day, which gave firefighters what they needed to fight the flames and delivered a pure source to homeowners. and businesses – which was desperately needed in a city struggling with a persistent pandemic, ”says Dan Levy, author of the next Manhattan Phoenix. “He revolutionized America’s water systems and became a training ground for a whole generation of American engineers, who would create the country’s aqueducts and canals.
4. The Great Chicago Fire
A view of downtown Chicago following the Great Chicago Fire, October 1871.
Stock photos / Getty Images
The Great Chicago Fire lasted from October 8 to 10, 1871. It left 300 people dead and more than 90,000 homeless. A third of the city has been destroyed. “Since Chicago was at the center of the nation’s telegraph network, which was recently connected to Europe, the Great Fire was the first instant international news event,” says Carl S. Smith, author of The great Chicago fire: The destruction and resurrection of an iconic American city.
The “Great Reconstruction” that took place in the wake of the fire transformed Chicago and made it a new and powerful hub for business. Over $ 10 million has been donated to the community. “This was quickly accompanied by large capital investments,” says Smith, “since Chicago’s crucial position between the natural resources of the American backcountry and consumer appetites – for grain, meat and a wide range of other products and commodities – from East and Europe have made its reconstruction a high priority and a solid investment for investors. The fire has become critical to Chicago’s image as the embodiment of the overwhelming force of modernity in America.
WATCH: The Great Chicago Fire on HISTORY Vault
5. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Light
WATCH: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire on March 25, 1911 killed 146 employees of the Triangle Waist Company who were trapped in the Asch building in Greenwich Village, New York. Many have jumped to their deaths in twos or threes or perished en masse through locked exits. “Everyone who jumped was killed. It was a horrible sight, ”eyewitness Frances Perkins said. Most of the victims were young women and immigrants, many of whom had come to the United States in hopes of a better life.
The fire united unions and public outcry over the incident prompted the national government to take action to protect workers, leading to new workplace safety laws. Perkins was so outraged that she dedicated her life to defending workers’ rights. She went on to help set up the Factories Commission of Inquiry and ultimately became Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labor secretary during the New Deal, transforming the work landscape in America.
READ MORE: How the gruesome triangular shirt waist fire tragedy led to workplace safety laws
6. The Reichstag fire
The burnt-out plenary hall of the Reichstag in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 1933.
Imagno / Getty Images
Arsonists set fire to the Reichstag, seat of the German parliament, on February 27, 1933. Adolf Hitler, a burgeoning politician who had just been appointed Chancellor of the Reich a month earlier, accused the Communists of having put the fire.
“The Reichstag fire was crucial for the consolidation of Hitler’s power,” says Benjamin Hett, professor and author of Burn the Reichstag. “It provided a pretext for an emergency law – informally known as the Reichstag Fire Decree – that tore up Weimar’s democratic constitution and ended freedom of speech and assembly, confidentiality of mail and freedom to arrest without charge.
A little less well known, but of crucial importance, is that the decree allowed the Hitler government to take control of the government of one of the German federal states which did not “keep order”. Some state governments were in the hands of determined opponents of the Nazis, so that power was essential, ”says Hett. To this day, the identity of the arsonists remains in dispute.
7. Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland
John D. Rockefeller’s first oil refinery was built along a creek that flows into the Cuyahoga River. While Rockefeller’s standard oil dumped gasoline into the river, it was also used as the Cleveland sewer. The river burned nine times between 1868 and 1952.
The fire that broke out on June 22, 1969 was relatively small compared to previous fires, but with one critical difference: “Many rivers were badly polluted during the 1960s, but the Cuyahoga River caught fire just as it was. where the national media began to cover the environment as a serious issue and as the national public increasingly recognized the urgent need to protect the environment, ”says John H. Hartig, Ph.D., Great Lakes Science -Policy Advisor, International Association for Great Lakes Research.
“The Cuyahoga fire and other environmental disasters like the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969 have become national symbols of industrial indifference and weak public regulation. The environmental movement needed a rallying point and the burning Cuyahoga River became its poster child, ”Hartig said. Time The magazine featured the Cuyahoga River in the same issue as Ted Kennedy’s Moon Landing and Chappaquiddick Scandal, delivering the story to eight million readers.
The public reaction to the Cuyahoga River fire in 1969 contributed to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and critical environmental legislation such as the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement 1972 between the United States and Canada and the 1973 Endangered Species Act.
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