Annus Horribilis: A look at what’s left after the fire (1666)

This, of course, all came hot on the heels of the Great Plague of 1665. It was not a good year to be a Londoner.

Though they couldn't have known it, these two events were major catalysts in London's renaissance and evolution into a financial and industrial megacity.

There's something remarkably and utterably English, however, that when disaster struck, the first urge was to blame neither god, nor simple misfortune, but the French.