LONDON'S RIVER TURNED MURKY: A SUMMER OF FILTH, 1858

The city of London sweltered in the heat of summer, 1858. But it was not merely the sun that baked the metropolis. An even more repellent force infested its very heart: the River Thames. Years of industrial effluents had transformed London's lifeblood into a foul-smelling mire. The stench was oppressive, a miasma that clung to every cobblestone and

The year the year of our Lord eight hundred and forty-five AD. A chill wind swept across the Seine River, carrying with it the scent of salt and fear. The Norsemen were upon us, a ravenous swarm of warriors seeking plunder. Their longships, like beasts of the north, sliced through the waters, their standards waving in the wind. A city once confiden