The Great Fire of London

The fire started in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane in the early hours of 2 September and, driven by an east wind through streets of tar-caulked timber houses, burned for four days. It destroyed old St Paul's, eighty-seven churches and the homes of perhaps seventy thousand people.

Only six deaths were recorded, though the true number was certainly higher and the poor were rarely counted. The Monument stands 61 metres from where the bakery was — exactly its own height.