Masks On The Chin And The Overthrow Of Brazil

In 1666 there was a huge fire in London. More than three hundred houses caught fire on the first day. A lot, isn’t it? The problem was that the fire's dimensions were too large, and the firefighters were not coping. The mayor then tried an alternative solution: demolishing houses and businesses close to the fire, thereby preventing the adjacent houses from burning. It would create a “barrier” by removing houses from the path. The fire would have nothing to burn and would not spread.

The problem was that the owners of these houses did not let them be demolished. And their arguments were “London has already survived other fires!”, “The fire is still far away, it will go out before it gets here!” or “And who’s going to pay for my demolished house?”

OK…

The mayor, a well-intentioned man, but without guts, gave up on ordering the demolition.

And the fire continued its work. On the second day, there were already three thousand houses burning! At this point, they thought it was worth demolishing some houses to stop the fire, but the demolition teams simply couldn’t handle it anymore: the fire came before the demolition was over.

Finally, on the third day, the King intervened, ordering to EXPLODE houses to form the barrier. This action, in addition to reaching the Thames, finally put an end to the fire. Final result? Thirteen thousand houses were destroyed—seventy thousand homeless Londoners, out of a population of eighty thousand.