The Great Storm

The worst storm in English record came ashore in the dark of the moon and took the Eddystone lighthouse, its builder inside it, off the rock.

Daniel Defoe collected eyewitness accounts and published them as The Storm, which is arguably the first work of modern journalism. A new moon means a spring tide, and the surge arrived on one: the Severn flooded miles inland, and the Royal Navy lost thirteen ships and around fifteen hundred men in a single night.