On July 18, 64 AD, the center of Western Civilization, city of Rome, capital of the Roman Empire, suffered an enormous fire that devastated the city and burned for 6 days. Contrary to popular myth, Emperor Nero could not have been fiddling during this event as the violin was not invented until the 1500's!
Digging Deeper
Actually, Nero's enemies accused him of sending out teams of agents pretending to be drunk to start fires around the city, and then as the story goes, Nero calmly played the Lyre (an old time stringed instrument) while the fires raged.
