THE THAMES RAN FOUL: A SUMMER OF FILTH, 1858

The city of London breathed in the heat of summer, 1858. But it was not merely the sun that scorched the metropolis. An even more detestable force infested its very heart: the River Thames. Years of industrial discharges had transformed London's lifeblood into a foul-smelling mire. The stench was overwhelming, a miasma that clung to every cobblesto

The mighty Colossus, once a sprawling nation stretching from Spain to Persia|the vast stretches of North Africa, was not immune to the inevitable march of time. Seeds of decline were sown in its very core, festering over centuries and inevitably leading to its precipitous collapse. {Internal strife|divisions within the empire proved a formidable