A RIVER RUNS PUTRID: A SUMMER OF FILTH, 1858

The city of London sought in the heat of summer, 1858. But it was not merely the sun that scorched 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 all-consuming, a miasma that clung to every cobblestone a

The mighty Roman Empire, once a sprawling kingdom stretching from Britannia to the East|the vast stretches of North Africa, was not immune to the inevitable march of time. Seeds of corruption were sown in its very foundations, festering over centuries and inevitably leading to its abrupt demise. {Internal strife|constant power struggles proved a