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 parched the metropolis. An even more repellent force infested its very heart: the River Thames. Years of industrial discharges had transformed London's lifeblood into a nauseating odor. The stench was all-consuming, a miasma that clung to every cobblestone

On a blustery afternoon in that fateful year, disaster unfolded Boston. A massive holding filled with sticky, sweet molasses ruptured sending a torrent of the thick liquid flowing through the streets. The force was catastrophic, crushing buildings and entombing people in a sticky mire. Dozens of people were fatally injured, and many more were wou