A quiz question · easy
In what year did the Great Stink of London finally force Parliament to act on the city's sewage problem?
The hot summer of 1858 raised the smell of untreated sewage in the Thames to the point at which Parliament — sitting directly above the river at Westminster — could not continue debate. The Metropolitan Board of Works was authorized to build Joseph Bazalgette's sewer system within eighteen days of the bill's introduction. 1832 is the first major cholera epidemic; 1845 the Public Health Act precursor; 1866 the last London cholera outbreak.
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The Smell That Built a City London's sewer system was funded in eighteen days. It took a heatwave, a river of feces, and a Parliament that could not breathe.
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