THE THAMES RAN FOUL: A SUMMER OF FILTH, 1858

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

On a blustery afternoon in that fateful year, disaster struck Boston. A massive holding filled with sticky, sweet molasses burst sending a tidal wave of the thick liquid rushing through the streets. The impact was catastrophic, smashing buildings and burying people in a gooey mass. Scores of people were lost their lives, and many more sustained i