September 2, 2020 • 12 mins
The Great Fire of London began on this day in 1666. / On this day in 1885, white miners killed Chinese miners and looted and burned their homes in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. Today's episode contains not just one,
but two nuggets of history. These are coming from the
T D I h C Vault, so you'll also here
to hosts. Consider it a double feature. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot com and from the desk of Stuff you
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
(00:21):
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and it's September two.
The Great Fire of London began on this day in
sixteen sixty six. Fires were not at all unusual in
(00:41):
London in the seventeenth century. Most of the buildings were
made out of wood, and the streets tended to be
very narrow, with the buildings built very close together, so
once a fire did start, it tended to spread really quickly.
The summer of sixteen sixty six, though, was really primed
for some kind of disaster. The summer had been very
long and hot and dry, so all of those wooden
(01:04):
buildings that were all so tightly built together were particularly dry.
The city also didn't have a lot of water on
hand to fight a fire if one happened. People were
aware of the danger, but frankly they had other things
on their minds. The Great Plague of London had killed
tens of thousands of people over the previous year. This
(01:25):
fire started in the home of the King's baker in
Putting Lane, near London Bridge. The family managed to escape,
but they're Maide was too scared to leave and she died.
The fire spread so quickly from there. It started at
about two am and by dawn the London Bridge was
on fire. The London Bridge was not just a bridge,
(01:47):
It also had buildings built on it, and in a
previous fire in sixteen thirty two, some of these buildings
had been torn down to create a firebreak, So pretty
typical way of fighting a fire in London at the
time You would just destroy the buildings that were in
the fire's path, so it wouldn't have any fuel anymore,
would have nowhere to go. The fact that some of
(02:09):
the buildings on London Bridge had been destroyed to stop
a fire in sixteen thirty two also stopped the fire
in sixteen sixty six, so the fire could not get
across the London Bridge, but it did continue to spread
west into London, aided by heavy winds. The mayor hesitated
about making more firebreaks because obviously it's very expensive to
(02:32):
rebuild deliberately torn down buildings after the fire is over,
and Charles the second finally ordered the destruction of any
buildings that needed to be destroyed to create a firebreak,
but by then it was just too late. The fire
was absolutely out of control. It burned for days and
was finally extinguished on September five. Some flames broke out
(02:53):
again after that, though at Temple Church, and the Duke
of York immediately had several buildings nearby blown up to
stop the spread. A massive part of London was destroyed
in this fire, including most of the civic buildings. Nearly
ninety parish churches were destroyed and more than ten thousand homes.
There are also four officially reported deaths. There may have
(03:14):
been many more, but considering how big the fire was,
it seems as though the death toll was surprisingly low.
When the city was rebuilt, a lot of the streets
were widened and many of the houses were made of
brick instead of wood. An investigation also followed this fire,
A lot of people believed it had been some kind
(03:35):
of a plot by a foreign power or a plot
by Catholics, so this led to an increased anti immigrants
and anti Catholic hostility. Watchmaker Robert Hubert's confessed starting the
fire and was executed, but his testimony was really erratic.
It kept changing, and after his execution, his colleagues said
(03:59):
there was no way he could have done it because
he was at sea when the fire started. It's completely
unknown why he confessed to starting this fire that he
definitely did not start. You can learn more about this
in the May episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class,
History is Unforgettable Fires. You can also subscribe to This
Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast and
(04:22):
wherever else you get your podcasts, and you can tune
in tomorrow for a massacre that followed a war. Hello,
Welcome to This Day History class, where we desked off
a little piece of history every day. The day was September.
(04:52):
Two white miners murdered twenty eight Chinese miners in Rock Springs,
Wyoming after a dispute over the location where they were working.
Anti Chinese sentiment was high in the U S at
the time, with the Rock Springs Massacre occurring just three
(05:13):
years after the Chinese Exclusion Act put a tenure moratorium
on Chinese labor immigration. Though the Rock Springs massacre was
not the only instance of anti Chinese violence in this climate,
it was one of the more brutal occurrences. Chinese miners
had been in the United States at least since the
(05:35):
California Gold Rush in eighteen forty nine. Even though the
work they were doing, like farming and building railroads, was
physically demanding, difficult, and dangerous, they stayed because they could
make much more money in the US than they could
in China, and because they kept their expenses low. They
(05:55):
often took low paying jobs. White workers began to view
Chinese immigrants as competitors who were taking their jobs, and
they made it clear that the Chinese were not welcome.
Violence against Chinese people was not uncommon in California, Arizona,
and Nevada, but even though Congress limited Chinese immigration into
(06:18):
the United States, Chinese people continued to work in the
Western US. The railroad company Union Pacific had coal mines
across Wyoming that provided the fuel for trains. When it
ran into financial trouble and needed to save money, the
company cut miners pay. On top of this, Union Pacific
(06:41):
required workers to shop for food, clothes, and tools at
the company's stores so it could pocket more money. The
company's miners went on strikes against these working conditions, and
they tried to unionize, but the company did not concede
to the striker's demands and even sorted to firing strikers
(07:02):
and hiring people who were more compliant. After one eighteen
seventy five strike, Union Pacific hired Chinese miners who were
willing to work for low wages. By five, there were
about six hundred Chinese miners and three hundred white miners
working at the coal mine in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The
(07:23):
white miners, largely Scandinavian, Welsh, and English immigrants, lived in
downtown Rock Springs. The Chinese miners lived in what the
white miners called Chinatown. Though the two groups worked side
by side, they maintained their own cultures and languages, and
white workers were still unhappy with their pay, which remained low,
(07:47):
so they joined a union called the Knights of Labor,
where they could voice their grievances. Many white miners wanted
to send the Chinese out of Wyoming Territory. Threats and
violence again It's Chinese workers in Wyoming were an issue.
This tension was the backdrop for a fight that broke
out between Chinese and white miners in the Number six
(08:09):
mine in Rock Springs on the morning of September two.
It was a high yield mine and getting a good
part of the mind was important for miners since they
were paid by the ton. One Chinese miner was hit
in the head with a pick and died in the fight.
A foreman broke up the violence, but the white miners
(08:32):
escalated the fight, getting weapons and gathering in the nights
of Labor Hall. As miners from other minds joined the
commotion and it became clear that violence was imminent, saloons
closed for the day. By that afternoon, between a hundred
and a hundred and fifty armed white men, mainly miners
(08:52):
and railroad workers, had assembled near the Number six mine.
Women and children joined them. The mob surrounded Chinatown. The
mob shot and killed Chinese people and looted and burned
their houses. They went to their Union Pacific bosses and
demanded they leave town. Territorial Governor Francis E. Warren called
(09:18):
for federal troops and told Union Pacific to run a
slow train that would pick up stranded Chinese miners and
give them food, water, and blankets. Many Chinese people who
had been threatened or faced violence were sent to Evanston,
west of Rock Springs. When some of the Chinese workers
(09:38):
requested railroad tickets out of Wyoming and the back pay
they were owed, the company refused. Union Pacific even refused
when white residents in Evanston requested the Chinese be paid
off so they could leave Wyoming. On September nine, the
Chinese people in Evanston were put on box cars and
told they were headed to safety in San Francisco. Instead,
(10:02):
they were taken back to Rock Springs so they could
go back to work. Of course, they met more antagonism
from white miners who blocked them from entering the mines,
and many Chinese people left Rock Springs, but Union Pacific
declared that they would fire anyone who was not back
to work by one, and so the miners went back
(10:26):
to work. Sixteen white miners were arrested and released on bail.
People cheered for them upon their release. Union Pacific fired
some of the white miners who took part in the massacre,
but no one was convicted of robbery, rioting, arson or murder.
In the end, Chinese people were killed fifteen were wounded.
(10:50):
In all, seventy nine of the shacks and houses in
Rock Springs, Chinatown were looted and burned. Damages were estimated
at about a hundred and d thousand dollars, which is
the equivalent of about four million dollars today, and Congress
ended up compensating the miners for their loss. Federal troops
(11:10):
built Camp Pilot Butte between downtown Rock Springs in Chinatown
to prevent further violence, and they stayed there until the
Spanish American War broke out. In I'm Eve Jeffco and
hopefully you know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. We love it if you left us
a comment on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. At t D
(11:35):
I h C podcast, thanks again for listening, and I
hope you come back tomorrow for more delicious morsels of history.
(11:56):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. Today's episode contains not just one,
but two nuggets of history. These are coming from the
T D I h C Vault, so you'll also here
to hosts. Consider it a double feature. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot com and from the desk of Stuff you
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
(00:21):
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and it's September two.
The Great Fire of London began on this day in
sixteen sixty six. Fires were not at all unusual in
(00:41):
London in the seventeenth century. Most of the buildings were
made out of wood, and the streets tended to be
very narrow, with the buildings built very close together, so
once a fire did start, it tended to spread really quickly.
The summer of sixteen sixty six, though, was really primed
for some kind of disaster. The summer had been very
long and hot and dry, so all of those wooden
(01:04):
buildings that were all so tightly built together were particularly dry.
The city also didn't have a lot of water on
hand to fight a fire if one happened. People were
aware of the danger, but frankly they had other things
on their minds. The Great Plague of London had killed
tens of thousands of people over the previous year. This
(01:25):
fire started in the home of the King's baker in
Putting Lane, near London Bridge. The family managed to escape,
but they're Maide was too scared to leave and she died.
The fire spread so quickly from there. It started at
about two am and by dawn the London Bridge was
on fire. The London Bridge was not just a bridge,
(01:47):
It also had buildings built on it, and in a
previous fire in sixteen thirty two, some of these buildings
had been torn down to create a firebreak, So pretty
typical way of fighting a fire in London at the
time You would just destroy the buildings that were in
the fire's path, so it wouldn't have any fuel anymore,
would have nowhere to go. The fact that some of
(02:09):
the buildings on London Bridge had been destroyed to stop
a fire in sixteen thirty two also stopped the fire
in sixteen sixty six, so the fire could not get
across the London Bridge, but it did continue to spread
west into London, aided by heavy winds. The mayor hesitated
about making more firebreaks because obviously it's very expensive to
(02:32):
rebuild deliberately torn down buildings after the fire is over,
and Charles the second finally ordered the destruction of any
buildings that needed to be destroyed to create a firebreak,
but by then it was just too late. The fire
was absolutely out of control. It burned for days and
was finally extinguished on September five. Some flames broke out
(02:53):
again after that, though at Temple Church, and the Duke
of York immediately had several buildings nearby blown up to
stop the spread. A massive part of London was destroyed
in this fire, including most of the civic buildings. Nearly
ninety parish churches were destroyed and more than ten thousand homes.
There are also four officially reported deaths. There may have
(03:14):
been many more, but considering how big the fire was,
it seems as though the death toll was surprisingly low.
When the city was rebuilt, a lot of the streets
were widened and many of the houses were made of
brick instead of wood. An investigation also followed this fire,
A lot of people believed it had been some kind
(03:35):
of a plot by a foreign power or a plot
by Catholics, so this led to an increased anti immigrants
and anti Catholic hostility. Watchmaker Robert Hubert's confessed starting the
fire and was executed, but his testimony was really erratic.
It kept changing, and after his execution, his colleagues said
(03:59):
there was no way he could have done it because
he was at sea when the fire started. It's completely
unknown why he confessed to starting this fire that he
definitely did not start. You can learn more about this
in the May episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class,
History is Unforgettable Fires. You can also subscribe to This
Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast and
(04:22):
wherever else you get your podcasts, and you can tune
in tomorrow for a massacre that followed a war. Hello,
Welcome to This Day History class, where we desked off
a little piece of history every day. The day was September.
(04:52):
Two white miners murdered twenty eight Chinese miners in Rock Springs,
Wyoming after a dispute over the location where they were working.
Anti Chinese sentiment was high in the U S at
the time, with the Rock Springs Massacre occurring just three
(05:13):
years after the Chinese Exclusion Act put a tenure moratorium
on Chinese labor immigration. Though the Rock Springs massacre was
not the only instance of anti Chinese violence in this climate,
it was one of the more brutal occurrences. Chinese miners
had been in the United States at least since the
(05:35):
California Gold Rush in eighteen forty nine. Even though the
work they were doing, like farming and building railroads, was
physically demanding, difficult, and dangerous, they stayed because they could
make much more money in the US than they could
in China, and because they kept their expenses low. They
(05:55):
often took low paying jobs. White workers began to view
Chinese immigrants as competitors who were taking their jobs, and
they made it clear that the Chinese were not welcome.
Violence against Chinese people was not uncommon in California, Arizona,
and Nevada, but even though Congress limited Chinese immigration into
(06:18):
the United States, Chinese people continued to work in the
Western US. The railroad company Union Pacific had coal mines
across Wyoming that provided the fuel for trains. When it
ran into financial trouble and needed to save money, the
company cut miners pay. On top of this, Union Pacific
(06:41):
required workers to shop for food, clothes, and tools at
the company's stores so it could pocket more money. The
company's miners went on strikes against these working conditions, and
they tried to unionize, but the company did not concede
to the striker's demands and even sorted to firing strikers
(07:02):
and hiring people who were more compliant. After one eighteen
seventy five strike, Union Pacific hired Chinese miners who were
willing to work for low wages. By five, there were
about six hundred Chinese miners and three hundred white miners
working at the coal mine in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The
(07:23):
white miners, largely Scandinavian, Welsh, and English immigrants, lived in
downtown Rock Springs. The Chinese miners lived in what the
white miners called Chinatown. Though the two groups worked side
by side, they maintained their own cultures and languages, and
white workers were still unhappy with their pay, which remained low,
(07:47):
so they joined a union called the Knights of Labor,
where they could voice their grievances. Many white miners wanted
to send the Chinese out of Wyoming Territory. Threats and
violence again It's Chinese workers in Wyoming were an issue.
This tension was the backdrop for a fight that broke
out between Chinese and white miners in the Number six
(08:09):
mine in Rock Springs on the morning of September two.
It was a high yield mine and getting a good
part of the mind was important for miners since they
were paid by the ton. One Chinese miner was hit
in the head with a pick and died in the fight.
A foreman broke up the violence, but the white miners
(08:32):
escalated the fight, getting weapons and gathering in the nights
of Labor Hall. As miners from other minds joined the
commotion and it became clear that violence was imminent, saloons
closed for the day. By that afternoon, between a hundred
and a hundred and fifty armed white men, mainly miners
(08:52):
and railroad workers, had assembled near the Number six mine.
Women and children joined them. The mob surrounded Chinatown. The
mob shot and killed Chinese people and looted and burned
their houses. They went to their Union Pacific bosses and
demanded they leave town. Territorial Governor Francis E. Warren called
(09:18):
for federal troops and told Union Pacific to run a
slow train that would pick up stranded Chinese miners and
give them food, water, and blankets. Many Chinese people who
had been threatened or faced violence were sent to Evanston,
west of Rock Springs. When some of the Chinese workers
(09:38):
requested railroad tickets out of Wyoming and the back pay
they were owed, the company refused. Union Pacific even refused
when white residents in Evanston requested the Chinese be paid
off so they could leave Wyoming. On September nine, the
Chinese people in Evanston were put on box cars and
told they were headed to safety in San Francisco. Instead,
(10:02):
they were taken back to Rock Springs so they could
go back to work. Of course, they met more antagonism
from white miners who blocked them from entering the mines,
and many Chinese people left Rock Springs, but Union Pacific
declared that they would fire anyone who was not back
to work by one, and so the miners went back
(10:26):
to work. Sixteen white miners were arrested and released on bail.
People cheered for them upon their release. Union Pacific fired
some of the white miners who took part in the massacre,
but no one was convicted of robbery, rioting, arson or murder.
In the end, Chinese people were killed fifteen were wounded.
(10:50):
In all, seventy nine of the shacks and houses in
Rock Springs, Chinatown were looted and burned. Damages were estimated
at about a hundred and d thousand dollars, which is
the equivalent of about four million dollars today, and Congress
ended up compensating the miners for their loss. Federal troops
(11:10):
built Camp Pilot Butte between downtown Rock Springs in Chinatown
to prevent further violence, and they stayed there until the
Spanish American War broke out. In I'm Eve Jeffco and
hopefully you know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. We love it if you left us
a comment on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. At t D
(11:35):
I h C podcast, thanks again for listening, and I
hope you come back tomorrow for more delicious morsels of history.
(11:56):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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