Great Fire of London, 1666

This view of London shows the three-day fire at its height. The writer John Evelyn described the scene in his diary: “All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen above 40 miles round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an hideous storm.” Everyone in London at the time felt overwhelmed by the catastrophe, and many deemed it God’s punishment for the upheavals of the 1640s and 1650s. (© Museum of London, UK / Bridgeman Images.)