The Great London fire in September 1666 has over the centuries since been explored by numerous generations of historians (Great Fire of London. Wikipedia, 2023). However, our knowledge of what actually happened in 1666 seems to remain as incomplete as it was in the years immediately following the disaster. In short, although over three centuries have elapsed since the occurrence of the event, the progress of much historical investigation seems to have stalled. This stagnation is all the more striking when compared to the development of physics. Newton’s “Principia” appeared in 1687, and since that time, astounding progress has been achieved in maths and physics. We understand the structure of atoms that we cannot see with the naked eye; we can send men to the moon and are now planning to travel to Mars; many diseases, lethal in the seventeenth century, have been conquered. The reader may believe that a comparison with science is unfair because the fields are too different. However, examples taken from anthropology, palaeontology, and astronomy would also show substantial progress even if we confine ourselves only to the past century.