Doomed! The Prophecy That Spooked London... Twice

Why Londoners fled the city in 1750 and 1842.

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Image: iStock/CraigMReilly

How many times has London been evacuated? Quite a few, actually. Great fires, plagues, and enemy action have all, to various degrees, sent Londoners scrambling. Superstition, too. In 1750, large swathes of the population fled to the hills, egged on by a prophet…