The original Globe Theatre – which staged Shakespeare's plays and where the Bard wrote "Twelfth Night," "King Lear," and several others – opened in 1599 and burned down in 1613. The second ...

In 1613 the original Globe Theatre burned down. A spark from a cannon ... However, it was illegal to put a play on inside London, so theatres were built just outside the city.

And London was not alone. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, city leaders built a massive new opera house. A month after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the French actress Sarah Bernhardt gave a ...