London's 1665 plague killed up to 100,000 people, and cats and dogs were blamed and killed
the gist
The Great Plague of London in 1665 was the last major outbreak in a series of plague epidemics that had begun in the late fifteenth century. Between 75,000 and 100,000 Londoners died, and the peak came in one September week with 7,165 deaths. Wealthier residents fled to the countryside, while poorer households were sealed inside their homes, which were marked with a red cross and the words Lord have mercy on us. Theatres and other public spaces were closed. Authorities also believed that animals spread the disease, and it is estimated that 40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats were killed. The 1721 second edition of this compendium collected official regulations, symptoms, cures and mortality tables.
so what
The plague shows how public health measures such as quarantine and closure were used centuries ago, and how mistaken beliefs about carriers led to mass killing of animals. The compendium offers a rare contemporary record of how the city responded.
fun fact
The red cross on infected doors was accompanied by the plea Lord have mercy on us.
In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.
how it works
To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.
so what
A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.
the bigger pattern
Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.
fun fact
In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.
more on this
background
A Corner in Wheat is a 1909 American short silent film which tells of a greedy tycoon who tries to corner the market in wheat, destroying the lives of the people who can no longer afford to buy bread. It was directed by D. W. Griffith and adapted by Griffith and Frank E. Woods from a novel and a short story by Frank Norris, titled The Pit and "A Deal in Wheat". Griffith may have had a real-life inspiration: six months earlier, James A. Patten had actually cornered the market in wheat, and in some cities, the price of bread doubled from five cents to ten, just as in the movie.
In 1994, A Corner in Wheat was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
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