The Alexandrian Library in Cairo was accidentally set on fire during Julius Caesar’s brief campaign in Egypt in 48 B.C. One of the scholars who worked at the Alexandrian Library was a woman named Hypatia, born in 370 A.D., the daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria. She instructed students on Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and other Greek philosophers. She was regarded as a pagan. One day, she was dragged from her chariot, stripped, and flayed alive with clam shells.