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Today is September13, 2026 Sunday.

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The World in 1871 the year two great cities burned

The Chicago fire left about 100,000 people with nowhere to sleep, roughly one person in three in the city.

Life back then

Paris spent the winter cut off. German armies had ringed the city since September, and by January people were eating horses, cats and animals from the zoo. When the government made peace, the city refused to accept it. Workers and national guardsmen took over in March and ran Paris themselves for ten weeks as the Paris Commune. French troops fought their way back in during the last week of May. The city hall and the Tuileries palace burned, and thousands of Parisians were shot.

The year in 8 events

• 👑Jan 18 The German states crown Wilhelm I as emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Germany is now one country.
• 📜Mar 3 Congress stops signing treaties with Native American nations. The ones already signed stay in force.
• 🚩Mar 18 Paris rises against the French government and sets up its own. The army retakes the city in May.
• 🏉Mar 27 Scotland beat England at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, in the first rugby match between two countries.
• ⚖️Apr 20 President Grant signs a law letting him send troops against the Ku Klux Klan in the South.
• 🔥Oct 8 A fire starts in a Chicago barn and burns for two days. Most of the city centre is gone.
• 🧭Nov 10 Henry Stanley finds David Livingstone at Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika in east Africa.
• 🎼Dec 24 Verdi's opera Aida has its first night at the opera house in Cairo.

Who Was in Charge?

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