Great Fire of London both recorded the events and their own reactions day by day, and made great efforts to keep themselves informed of what was happening all over the City and beyond. After two rainy summers in 1664 and 1665, London had lain under an exceptional drought since November 1665, and the wooden buildings were tinder-dry after the long hot summer of 1666. A fire broke out at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane a little after midnight on Sunday 2 September. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a
Great Plague of London Great Plague of London The Great Plague, lasting from 1665–1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long time period of the Second Pandemic, an extended period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics which began in China in 1331, the first year of the Black Death, an outbreak which included other forms such as pneumonic plague, and lasted until 1750. The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people—almost a quarter of London's population—in 18 months. The plague was caused by the "Yersinia pestis" bacterium, which is usually transmitted through the bite