History of the World: Famous Fires

If you're a good sleuth—I mean, if you could really give Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew a run for their money—then you might have noticed that the _floss has a book coming out at the end of the month. That means we have roughly 400 pages jam-packed with fascinating flossiness to share with you. It comes out October 28, so between now and then, we thought we'd feature some of our favorite bits. I've been through it three or four times now and I find something new and interesting every time—hopefully you'll agree!

Rome

The Globe Theater

Tokyo

On September 2, 1923, a four-minute, 7.4-on-the-Richter-scale earthquake rocked Tokyo. It definitely did some damage, but worse were the fires that popped up everywhere afterward. It happened right around lunchtime, so thousands of stoves were lit. This resulted in, well, thousands of little fires that joined up with the large ones already in progress. All in all, the death toll was more than 130,000 with more than 700,000 residences destroyed. Worse, though, all of the mayhem created rumors that Japan was being invaded, so vigilante mobs started beating and killing non-Japanese, especially Koreans.

Dante's Inferno

OK, it's a different type of fire, but a fire nonetheless. Dante Alighieri pretty much based his Inferno on creative ways of torturing people throughout history whom he really hated. Despite being more than a vengeful and, you know, creepy, it was actually a really good thing: he wrote in his native Italian, so ordinary people were able to read his writings. His books were so influential that a lot of his spellings and grammar have carried over into modern Italian.

It's the greatest deal in the history of history books! Our first hardback, The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through History's Best Bits, hits stores later this month, and we're so excited that we've teamed up with the fine folks at Amazon.com to give you a special deal. Pre-order the book before October 27th and we'll throw in 6 FREE MONTHS of mental_floss magazine! Just click here to get the deal now. For more about the book, check out our FAQ.