The city of London breathed in the heat of summer, 1858. But it was not merely the sun that parched the metropolis. An even more unpleasant force infested its very heart: the River Thames. Years of industrial effluents had transformed London's lifeblood into a stench. The stench was overwhelming, a miasma that clung to every cobblestone and pervade

The year 845 AD. A chill wind blasted across the Seine River, carrying with it the scent of salt and fear. The Norsemen had arrived, a stormy swarm website of warriors seeking plunder. Their longships, like beasts of the north, sliced through the waters, their banners billowing in the wind. A city once peaceful now trembled beneath the menace of Ra