QI | What Good Did The Great Fire Of London Do?

6 September: On this day in 1666 the Great Fire of London ended.
From QI Series G, Episode 10 - 'Greats'
With Jo Brand, Sean Lock, David Mitchell and Alan Davies
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[@Putaspellonyou]

The fire ALSO allowed the reconstruction of the entire water and sewer system of greater London to something approaching sanitary standards. Covered sewers cut down dramatically on disease. It also mandated certain building codes and minimum setbacks.

[@SocCapAth]

Are you suggesting people don't enjoy cholera?

[@varun009]

If anything, certainly the waterways wouldn't have been burnt.

[@mrav8r]

If only Washington DC had learned how to construct sewage and waterways from London’s reconstruction. It took 300 more years before we (we here in WashDC) acquired proper sewage in 1890!

[@LancerCatman]

i do love how david mitchell who studies history at cambridge makes a point, and then stephen shuts him down, was hoping for a historical fight

[@TonyHavenMusic]

History is just what it is, it is only His Story, they are stories that can have only fragments of factual truths that are handed down over time, I'm glad QI acknowledges this regular and shifts it's info with latest knowledge that many history graduates refuse to do because they feel they might have wasted those years learning so much data that turns out not to be true 😅

[@nealmp]

@@TonyHavenMusic that's not the etymology of the world "history".

[@kuruman1]

By Mitchell’s own admission he rather phoned it in at Cambridge.

[@emjackson2289]

English Common Law made it very difficult to do the reconstruction as was planned, there were no methods of doing compulsory purchase back then and many free-holders simply said "No, you're not having my three by three yard lot"

[@matthewsawczyn6592]

1:06 - Fun fact: The hippocampus region of a London cab driver's brain actually grows extra mass, in order to keep track of all the convoluted streets

[@decodolly1535]

If that's been researched and proved, it's fascinating. Or is it an urban myth?

[@bobwoww8384]

Hella cool

[@rin_etoware_2989]

It also allowed for buildings between the City and nearby Westminster to be built, since obviously there will be people who would need to live somewhere.

[@jacknovember8027]

The fire allowed freemason Christopher Wren to make a packet redesigning London.

[@jacknovember8027]

Only 6 people died, the fire was in 1666 and ended on the 6th of the 9th month. Gematria.

[@LoneKharnivore]

September 1666: Great Fire
September 1888: Jack the Ripper
What happened in September in 1777 and 1999 I wonder?

[@danielsaunders2878]

99 I was born. Best thing to happen that year for sure. Unless you ask my mother. She would say her life was destroyed that year.

[@mvl71]

@@danielsaunders2878 Or ask your father. His wife was destroyed. Well, the important bits anyway.

[@danielsaunders2878]

@@mvl71 I would ask him if he wasn't dead. Tbh I'm pretty sure if i could ask him i doubt he'd give much of a fuck about what I did to her as he left before he could even find out.

[@hiltonian_1260]

1777 was the British defeat at Saratoga that brought the French into the American Revolution. Basically sealed the deal. No idea about 1999.

[@williamjones7163]

It got rid of all the really crappy places and left standing the just crappy places.

[@Telstar62a]

Where's MY parade, man?!?!

[@insernamehereflynn]

A fiery first

[@insernamehereflynn]

You are a plague on society

[@hellefors973]

+Flynn Mcleod Did you comment your own commet?

[@BubbaYoga]

No

[@BubbaYoga]

Yes

[@johandelema9747]

Very interesting definition of 'great'. It's like what good did the bombing of rotterdam do for rotterdam...

[@jacknovember8027]

666 should be a dead giveaway as to the perpetrators.

[@peterclarke7240]

Are you saying...
Iron Maiden did it?!
Makes sense, now I think about it... 🤔

[@dionlindsay2]

It's beginning to annoy me that St Stephen keeps saying "It's not true. There's no evidence whatsoever", as if the two are synonomous

[@dielaughing73]

@Pipe Tunes You know you don't have to watch

[@zym6687]

"Nobody knows why it(the plague) ended, but it wasn't the fire" If nobody knows, then the fire is as valid a reason as any, presuming ONE particular event could do so SOLELY and not an interminable number of intermediate causes which are responsible for literally everything and anything that happens....ever.

[@zoranocokoljic8927]

@@zym6687 If the fire happened after the plague ended, then it can not it any way be the valid reason. Cause must come before consequence (unless we're talking Quantum physics and General relativity). So, while nobody knows why the plague ceased, they know it was not because of something that happened after it. Otherwise, you can't exclude Rolling Stones at Wembley as a reason.

[@drSvensen]

@@zym6687 Nobody knows who's behind the work of Shakespeare, but it isn't Gretha Thunberg.

[@Taricus]

@@zoranocokoljic8927 Quantum physics and general relativity don't break the order of cause and effect. General relativity can make it seem weird, but it doesn't change the order. The paradoxes aren't actually paradoxes; they just seem like it to an observer not moving at the speed of light or in an intense field of gravity. They go over that stuff in probably about Chapter 1 or 2 of a modern physics book (about the 2nd year of university for a physics major).