The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-09-13

when the natives, under Queen Boadicea, razed the then unwalled city. By the fourth century A. D. it had risen from its ashes and be- come walled city.
 Invading Saxons - ancestors of some of the latter day Hitlerites- took the town later and destroyed the Roman buildings. Danes footed the place. English King Alfred re- took London in 884. Alfred was the first of molern kings to understand London's strategic importance, and he did all he could to make it a real stronghold.
 When William the Conqueror came to England with his Norman soldiers in 1O66, he persuaded London to sum- init to him. He gave the city one of it's first important charters. His Norman architects and builders made it medieval city of genuine beauty, secure behind stone walls.
 CITY FOUGHT
 FOR MAGMA CARTA
 London began to assume the char acter it was to have for the rest Of it's history-that of town playing leading part in the fight for human liberty. It sided with the barons in their fight with King John, which resulted in the granting of the Magma Carta-fount of all the liberties en- shrined in such great documents as the American Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
 In the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the very fate of the nation was threatened by the Spanish Armada, London citizens equipped and dis patched vessels to take part in the fight which destroyed that menace to Britain. In the days of the strug- gle between Parliament and Crom- well on one side and King Charles I on the other. London sided with Parliament.
 London Bridge, which has been falling down in children's games for generations, was a wooden bridge replaced by one finished in 1909.
 London, which has never ceased engulfing small towns and villages, began this phase of its career in 1928 when it absorbed the village of Southwark on the south side of the Thames. This place, resort of male factors hiding from London police, was destined to be the scene Of Shakespeare's activities as actor and playwright and theatrical manager.
 A city of little or no sewage fa- cilities, and often of tainted water supply, London had plague in 1407 which killed half its people. Another in 1517 did the same. But the great est plague of all occurred in the sum- mer of 1865. The king and 100000 citizens fled the town. Grass grew in the silent streets. The quiet was broken at night only when burial carts rattled on the cobbles and men cried out:
 Bring forth your dead"
 Before winters cold killed the germs, 100000 had died.
 FIRE RAZED
 13,OOO BUILDINGS
 The very next year in the month of September came London's greatest fire, which burned for three days and nights and was stopped only when houses in its path were brown up. Four hundred blocks covering 436 acres were destroyed, including lS,000 buildings, among which was old St. Paul's cathedral, forerunner of the present great edifice.
 London had been a city of very narrow streets and wooden build- ings. It rose from the ashes with wider streets and brick and stone structures. It was the beginning of Q modern city. But even down to the times of Queen Victoria. It's area was restricted to the old City Mile site Of the ancient Roman town and to the acres in the three or four miles on both sides of the Thames.
 The later 10th century began the vast expansion outward on all sides. 100000 and the vast increase in made necessary by A population of commerce and industry.
 In the first World war London got c taste of attack by aircraft.
 Up to the autumn Of ieiT London | had endured a raids ontaillng the | lives Of eob people and wolindins | q LOO, Many buildlngn were wrecked ]