THE THAMES RAN FOUL: A SUMMER OF FILTH, 1858

The city of London breathed in the heat of summer, 1858. But it was not merely the sun that baked the metropolis. An even more unpleasant force infested its very heart: the River Thames. Years of industrial discharges had transformed London's lifeblood into a nauseating odor. The stench was oppressive, a miasma that clung to every cobblestone and p

On a blustery January in that fateful year, disaster befell Boston. A massive holding filled with sticky, sweet molasses gave way sending a tidal wave of the thick liquid flowing through the streets. The force was catastrophic, crushing buildings and burying citizens in a treacly mire. Dozens of people were lost their lives, and many more were wo