From: le@main.lekno.ws   
      
   radioacti...@gmail.com  wrote:   
   > Referencing the massive Pestego forest fire up in Wisconsin on   
   > Sunday, October 8, 1871 whilst a blameless cow was supposedly (AND fictively)   
   > knocking over that lantern in Mrs. O'Leary's barn on Chicago's North Side:   
   >   
   > Quite right you are, Louis (as you almost invariably are factually), about   
   > how while EVERYONE knows about the Chicago fire, just about no one talks   
   > about Pestigo.   
   >   
   > Though it's hard to quantify these things from the perspective of succeeding   
   > centuries--both the famed Chicago fire and the still-obscure Pestigo one   
   > started were in 1871, for Heaven's sake--by SOME historians' metrics, the   
   > disaster up in Wisconsin was actually MORE costly than the Chicago blaze!   
   > (Of course, the Wisconsin catastrophe was rural--even TODAY that area is   
   > still sparsely populated--so the toll in human lives was dwarfed by the   
   > Chi-town blaze, of course.)   
      
   By what odd mathematics do the 250 deaths in Chicago "dwarf"   
   the 1,182 deaths resulting from the Peshtigo fire?   
      
   I said worst in life OR property,and I meant it.   
   (These figures are from the World Almanac)   
      
   > By the way--one late 20th Century theory, FAR from ever proven but   
   > fascinating nontheless, is that a streaking meteor--not sure if it was going   
   > from over Illinois up to Wisconsin, or vice versa--dropped smouldering   
   > remnants over Chicago AND the Wisconsin forest, thus sparking BOTH fires!   
   >   
   > Now while I first heard about the Chicago fire prior even to   
   > kindergarten--my older brother AND parents talked about such things from time   
   > to time, and I was a good listener even before I turned 6 in 1960--I didn't   
   > first learn about the Pestego blaze until an odd headline caught my eye as I   
   > paged though a book while in 3rd Grade.  The headline: "The Night of the   
   > Great Fires".  My desk was at the rear of Mrs. Bibee's 3rd grade class at   
      
   In my case,it was an Old Farmer's Almanac article in the 1970s.   
      
   > Kennerly Elementary in late February 1964--while I was still mentally   
   > processing what I had witnessed on CBS Television on Sunday night, February   
   > 9th and then also the two following Sunday nights, to wit, that fortnight of   
   > the three Beatles initial Sullivan show appearances.  But teacher Bibee was   
   > talking to the class about something else, and I was tuning her out with my   
   > nose in the book.   
   >   
   > Even 60 years later, I remember being STARTLED that I'd never heard of this   
   > second, SAME-NIGHT fire only a couple hundred miles north of the Chicago   
   > fire, which as I said above, had for years been part of my own body of   
   > collected knowledge, if only fragmentary.  I distinctly recall thinking to   
   > myself, "Why oh why isn't this mentioned EVERY TIME people cite the Great   
   > Chicago fire?!?"  (Mrs. Bibee never noticed I was tuning out whatever she was   
   > saying to the rest of the class.)   
      
   I also had heard of the Chicago fire years before.   
      
   > As you might imagine, that day after school when I got home, I went straight   
   > to the World Book Encyclopedia entry on the Chicago fire, and found only   
   > fleeting mention of the Pestigo blaze.   
   >   
   > BUT:  this remarkable incident in my young life taught me a VITAL lesson:   
   > EVEN IF it's a reliable source (big "if" THERE, even back then), you simply   
   > can't count on what you're reading to always tell you the complete story.   
   > (I'm NOT saying that the numerous previous times I'd heard about the Chicago   
   > fire from other sources--print, TV or just some talkative adult--that they   
   > were SUPPRESSING the vital Pestigo fire story; they were probably ignorant   
   > about it THEMSELVES, but SOMEBODY I'd previously heard about the Chicago fire   
   > from probably DID know about it, but just assumed a 1st or 2nd grade kid   
   > didn't NEED or even WANT to know about it, so it never came up.   
   >   
   > Well, THIS kid ever since late 1957 or so at age 3 ALWAYS had a thirst for   
   factual knowledge (even if I didn't know the word "factual" yet), even if I   
   couldn't understand the nuances of it.  Everyone I encountered in those days   
   seems to have sold me    
   intellectually short, and I'm STILL annoyed by that in 2024.  Of course, I WAS   
   short then --about 4'6" in those days, far from my 5'11" topping out height   
   (long before old age shrunk me to my current 5"9")--but they still for some   
   inexcusable reason    
   always underestimated my even-in-childhood ability to grasp AND retain   
   supposedly "adult" information.   
   >   
   > NOW, and in answer, Louis, to your French Revolution question:   
   >   
   > That week when Captain Bligh was mutinied and Washington was inaugurated at   
   the end of April 1789 was ALSO the week the so-called Estates General   
   legislature was closing in on Paris, from the hinterlands all over France,   
   after having been called (for    
   the first time in well over a century, if memory serves) QUITE reluctantly by   
   Louis XVI, on the persistent advice of his advisors.  By the time Washington   
   raised his hand on Wall Street across the Atlantic, they were already mostly   
   in town, many even    
   already at the Versailles palace about 15 miles to the southwest of Notre Dame.   
   >   
   > Then on Tuesday, May 5th (exactly a week after the mayhem aboard The Bounty   
   in the South Pacific), the Estates General officially convened.  Again, there   
   was much starting and stopping over these weeks, but on Saturday, June 20th   
   the die was finally    
   cast and there was no turning back...for that's the day the commoners locked   
   out the nobles inside the Royal tennis [indoor] tennis court and declared   
   themselves to be the REAL power in France.  And of course on the first   
   Bastille Day (Tuesday, July 14,    
   1789), after several days of low-level rioting through and beyond the weekend,   
   they stormed prison of The Bastille (only to learn to their dismay that all   
   but six prisoners had already been spirited out during the preceding weeks!).   
   >   
   > And it must always be emphasized:  when the tennis court was commandeered by   
   > "the people", EVEN THE MOST RADICAL, revolution-minded participants were NOT   
   > just then intending to overthrow Louis XVI, much less ever execute   
   > him--rather, there were all about just reforming everything about the   
   > monarchy.  (The dismissal of detested Finance Minister Necker would ease   
   > things a bit on Saturday, July 11th, but not for long.)  For sure, most of   
   > them despised pocket-watch-tinkerer hobbiest [!] King Louis and all he and   
   > his numerous Court cronies so royally stood for, yet NO one was just then   
   > even dreaming that by Monday, January 21, 1793, they'd be chopping off his   
   > head.  (Meanwhile, cake-eating-recommender-NOT [her most infamous quote is   
   > one of history's greatest myths]) Queen Marie Antoinette wouldn't lose HER   
   > head until Wednesday, October 16, 1793.  (And after many months in an 18th   
   > Century prison cell, she hardly looked very regal by that bloody day, as   
      
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