Audible, sponsor of the audible audio pioneer awarded this year's. I radio podcast words is the best way to stay informed, inspired and entertained. Discover the world's largest selection of audio titles anytime, anywhere, with the odd lap. Whether you want to tackle a new skill focus on your healthy itself, we're discover new releases, there's no better placed to listen. Then audible, start your free thirty day, audible trial today and your first audio book is on us visit, audible, dot com. Slash asked why S k or text as why, as key to FF hundred five hundred pay and we can do the pie cast. I'm Josh Clark image Charles the reach of brain over there, and today we have guessed producer Josh sitting, not me another Josh, that another judge us his nickname is little Josh, the great thing,

That is a terrible, nickname, Chuck we're just killing. Of course, sorry, Georgian, sigh for chalk, everyone as I'm the great stink. I don't but that either I've never once smell due in the like more. Decade that we work together. I ever known you to smell family aright, That means I'm doing my I'm keeping my distance or even close buddy. I know still doubt, structure, certainly not agree. Stink. That's neither here nor there were no talking about a great stink at our way No, I don't even know you're talking about right exists. Are you don't even know what it is that you brought up? Nope heard while we are talking to start shock, but a little city called London town AIR crossed the pond in great Britain. The United Kingdom, England, whole area over there. And dumb London

A very long time has been around since at least the Roman, the kind of game and set up shop, Ray yeah, oh by the way. Since you brought that up, I need to get laid tracked already, but my good friend rob from college, Rob Elsie my were made in one of the smartest guys. I know texted me the other day and said by the way I would say The great was neither ignore Roman. He was Macedonia and I saw somebody Elsie Male that and I was a Greek still closer near turning my job to rob where'd. You go rob real time directions of yes rob diets. Ireland has been around for a couple years. He is what you are saying. It is in its forget kind, slowly grew more and more people were like air. Like that, I, like the sound there's a lot going on here. Fish and chips are great. Eventually it will produce some pretty pretty need people, I'm gonna, settle down here, a kid

as an example, but you you don't Gary Bible, equal Mary pop is gonna shop. Eventually they check so peoples settling in accumulating and die It became like a pretty substantial d by that, like sixteen hundred right, yeah big time, but then the night Century came and all of a sudden. This is at the peak of the british Empire early nineteenth century came along London, Jist exploded, in population in industry right before then during the right after the beginning of the industrial revolution, London, really grew as a result of that and sudden there was something like three million people living in London by like that, their eighteen fifties, which made it the most densely populated city. The planet, from what I understand or at the had the largest population from what I understand union

That means yes, I do. That means. If there's many millions who said three million three in eighteen fifty, it's three million, but holes net amount of human but holes, the riders teammates spelling things now just three million humans and then you ve got horse, but holes and all sorts of other animal bundles pig balls there's all they're all poop and all the time right, pooping everywhere twilight catch a few bore no less than they start throwing up to her. There is a lot of tinkle coming out of other holes. There's a lot of excrement that was being generated in London all of a sudden and there had been for a very long time, but all of a sudden it breached like that. A critical mass and up to this point London enjoyed. Work call roman sewers, which are basically just a ditch.

Ground. There were meant magic. Like rainwater right and if you had tube poor, p or vomit, or something like that- and you are human in your house. You problem We had a cesspool which was basically a pit in the basement. Sometimes, if your fancy, you might have like a cistern, a canister, something like that and you go pay provide p into this whole and then the hope was the whole was big enough, Family was small enough in number that the proper Your vomit with wood, Kay and get absorbed into the surrounding ground faster than you could fill it up. That was that was how they dealt with with surface water and sewage. Then you had a whole: they? U pooped! Impute him. Impeded and then you had re ditches, inveighing rain water to the young to the Thames is where the rainwater was to end

but it wasn't just rainwater was it that ended up in the attempt. No, I mean these, I mean We can just breeze pass these cesspools, they were per firstly designed to we're flow into the streets Actually, yes, they figured out that yeah we're getting to the point where we have enough people that that our support are cesspools or not decaying fast enough that there soon overflow yeah and if you live, if you are poor and lived em like the base meant or the ground floor of an apartment, building or something You might very well see the stuff seeping into your household. Sometimes if that's it someone's gone in earth. It's an empty building that we build up and Fain would become too in and there would be literal explosions from the trap. Methane of people's Pooh explosion yeah. It was really really bad and then, when you talk about the Thames River The terms is a tide way, so that means

the tides affect the water flow and so it's not like sewage. You know thought, like MR, send it out to the sea, and it's all good, but right, They wouldn't would happen as stuff would just kind of slow. Should back and forth because the tides the end result was the Thames River was and when I say disgusting, I mean capital deed, disgusting, yes, dangerously disgusting capital de dangerously two, yet so I'm Chuckie was. I dont know how they didn't realize that where London was on the terms as it was called the tide way, so it is affected by the Thai. Not only is it affected by the thai meaning when Tied rises, the as to whether in the sea basically comes up into London, but there is also still we are coming from the head waters of the Thames, so high tide, sometimes the terms would overflow its banks. Are we get so high right so

only did you have. The Thames itself is basically turn kinda like a washing machine on the agitation cycle, doing in mixing up garbage and remains concerned. Deb, human and animal by us in much more than poop and p o ye all that sewage. Everything that people did want any borders, is put into the Thames, but finally wasn't carried out of the sea, which is kind of mixed together and it would be together in kind of turned into solution that was suspended in in the water and then vote the some of it would settle to the to the bottom, but you have hundreds hundreds of years of waste just cycling right outside of London, and, like you said eventually by the by the the nineteenth century, apparently really turned starting about. Seem thirty. They found records that as late as eighteen hundred people still catching and eating salmon out of the Thames

by odd, but by eighty, whether was okay back then it was fine. I don't know about had by eighteen, thirty something a change that there is just again reach their critical mass kind of like gum, Jefferson that South Park where they go to the water park and like them there. There's like some scientists to realises that the the p to water ratio is about to hit a tipping point and once it tips pass that point, everything's gonna turn it p, and it happens in its discussing that's kind of what happened in eighteen. Thirty, two, the terms it reached a critical point in tipped into just like that, dangerously disgusting that of water. That was just hanging around in London at the time. Yes, there's a very famous scientists, Nay Michael Faraday, who made his name and in other realms of science, but he actually worked for the royal institution eighteen, fifty five when he

basically started doing an investigation, He went down to the river like got in it in a boat- I would imagine yeah and did various test in you know recorded a bunch of stuff and then one of his time. Was like. You would drop white paper in their then he said after paper gets in like an inch below the surface. You can't even see it, unlike who is basically like bubbling up to the surface, You can see human excrement on the surface down here, yet where were the tat, the Thames is flowing pass like the structure of a bridge that is getting out of the water and is its being cut up by that bridge. The flow is roiling up. This muck and disgusting stuff is roiling up in clouds. There he said were visible even in this. This opaque of a war and he rode all this stuff up into an article letter. I guess that he sent to the Times newspaper that

called observations on the filth, the Thames, and this was in eighteen, fifty five. I think it was published and dumb. He basically says if we just keep going this way, we should not be so, eyes. If something really bad happens like a hot spell long and reminds us that we really MR chance to do something about this in its now too late, so that eighteen, fifty five and that's faraday at the same time there's. Another thing going on can ask the side: where A scientist named John Snow, who actually knew a lot. It turns out. He we'll get another and jokes. There was a game. A throne was yeah didn't somebody they like. You know nothing Johns now I don't know gravity while ago, but I think that might have been first season, but anyway, what's that but again did make an impact. I think somebody.

Said you know nothing Johns now I don't know I just certain on twitter years back, they said, Whittier is coming. They said, read wedding and another to exert. Remember vague to just red waiting it. So this Johnson I think it is a chinese name which was his parents put into differentiate him from the game of Thrones CAT. That's, why is he but he was basically one of the world's first epidemiologists and he's working fever. Lay at the time, because there is something called the victorian plague which is called in cholera was a water borne illness they use. Did not want you could literally vomit in prove yourself to death. In a matter of hours. You would lose so much

you would dehydrate that quickly and so John Snow was like there's a cholera outbreak in. I suspect it's in the water by he went against the grain at the time, because, in eighteen, fifty chuck everyone thought that you caught diseases from the smell of things it was called the Mai asthma theory. That's right! People thought and they thought that possible That's where even cholera was coming from and color was was nothing new. Those epidemic in the eighteen thirty's they killed the more Six thousand people those I outbreak, can a shortly before this. In the late forties it killed fourteen thousand so as twenty and then but in fifty three and fifty four another ten Thirty thousand londoners kid: by cholera, and there are yes that think yeah, it's from from smelling this stuff in the air rights

people are trying to legs, treat the air they poured. Something called a cow cm of chloride of lime, which is amounts to basically pool chlorine today, to the Thames, like a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of this stuff, to try to cover up the stench that didn't work and actually made the Thames more talks. But John Snow is running rise. Like know how there's there's some other method transmission has nothing to do with the smell smells just a by product, and he actually did a in an outbreak map of cholera in traced it back to a particular well a public. Well, the head Doug unbeknown to the well diggers within three or four feet of abandoned cesspool that it built over and forgotten, and that those cesspool that contain cholera laden, fecal bacteria in

you d, the the the public well was making people sick John snow figured it out and is considered one of the early earliest epidemiologists. As a result, I must take a break and I need- and my hands then we'll come back and talk about what happened in the summer of eighteen. Fifty eight right after this. What is your first musical memory or the first out an ever more that first Kanzi Panama question over the lead,

and those are some of the things I want to know about. When I and my team Supreme sit down with the guests for new episode of my podcast Questlove Supreme Week, we chat with one of our favorite creators and thinkers, and we find out what makes them great it's not about gotcha journalism or trying to get the most Alicia's story, although I'm not If someone wants to spill some tea all over the table, it's really about knowledge, increasing Florence's and the hours upon hours of work that goes on not only when the spot lights turned on, but also long before the spotlight is even been plugged in listen to Questlove Supreme on the Iheartradio, app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast all right.

On our ever. You get your plaid cast all right, so the terms is in bad shape, a few there A few. Very smart people realise this they're, trying to raise a little hey about it, nothing much happening people a poor people are dying. Because you know, I was about to say because his Britain, but a lot of countries back then may have handled this the same way. It really until it hit kind of the. Politicians in the rich and the famous is when things really are going to change. In the summer of eighteen, fifty eight, a heat wave is what really really change things, because the heat bind with the the

What was going on in that river really made what was called the great Stink capital g capital assets in one and it was happening all open, the terms, but it was happening very close to where What was it Westminster where the politicians, and made their little rules, they can it that basically couldn't go to work. There are like you know what this is starting to affect our gut, starting to affect our government. We're using scented handkerchiefs. None of this is working so like We finally took that to be able to it in Amerika. If you know that something going on and no one reacted until it like poop was flowing steps of the White House, basically right, basically The irony of the whole thing is that had it not been for the persistence of the I ask my theory of disease. Parliament

might have not actually ended up acting on because it's so you have to have to put yourself in this, so this stink is so bad. There were talking about it, a hundred and fifty or sixty years later right. That's how bad it was. It was a legendary bad offensive stench and, not only was it a terrible, retchings pellet of supposedly people miles away, would catch scent of it and throw up like just throw where they were standing. It was that bad, because, again, we're talking hunt periods of years of human way. In animal waste and in the king by he's in all sorts of nastiness intestines, like you, know what they did with the Nina when they were like preparing animals for slaughter and went to the same place finally end own again. This is hundreds of years of this step and the Thames has slowed to a trickle because it's a dry spell

and now because of this heatwave, its cooking, the tens cooking. All this nasty stuff is cooking and the stench is coming off. So on top of that, being that bad of smell We also have to put yourself in the position of the people who are living at the time who believed that smells cause disease. Right. A cholera and typhus. Malaria are caused like if you smell it, you may have just caught it so the earth, terrified of but had John snow. Had people listen to him and in realise that now you get it from actually drinking the water, which was what they're doing right but parliament may not have acted because parliament in some of the wealthier people in London they got their water from like north of the city, piped in through awkward, so they clean drinking water. It was the lower classes. They were drinking the water drawn straight from the Thames, so they were making the same water that they were throwing their waste in to become? as they didn't realize that there was such a thing is the,

the oral fecal or transmission of war, airborne illnesses. Everybody thought it was just the stench. Yes open part. Notoriously very slow to get anything dine like a lot of governments, and then it took about what eighteen days, which was super fast. I think it was a record yeah, I think so too, and they created a bill. Pass this bill and signed it and a law that basically said we need, Basically red redo the river here I don't know it's gonna take. I don't think they knew how much it was. Gonna cost at the time, but they knew that the great stank had to stop right. So again, this after a kind of like you said, the proved his piled up at their doorstep right yeah, but that they they had, fortunately just like a couple years before, I think, maybe eighteen, fifty five, they created a new department up to this time,

like tat. The water works in the m. I think the sewage works. We're privately held by parliament Just recently created a new department called the Metro. Item board of works and they head. Does They did it. The chief engineer by the name of Joseph Basil, get you know how you would say it sure forego with we'll get then check if you're on board with that. Yes, Sir Joseph Basil Gatwick now to be one of the most celebrated engineers in western history, and he just so happens You have kind of got another Michael Faraday Trolley Emily. Yes, we need to do thing about the terms and the saloon. Commissioners are is a sewer. It's a modernize sewer, so he had spent years already drawing up plans and trying to get them. Implemented to no avail, and now all of a sudden, out of nowhere within eighteen days of this, the great stink developing

The parliament says: hey Basil, get go, get your plans, we're. Gonna put him into a use. Go re, some money saved three million dollars which is like, I think, four hundred and thirty million dollars today, three million pounds and get to work as fast, did you came here before this. The they didn't even have like before the Metropolitan Board of Works, They didn't even have a agree. That was even funded to tackle anything like this. Then, once even had the Metropolitan Board It wasn't really funded yet so that's what they had to go out and raise money so the hiring of Basel get was basil, get we're getting the Italian. No. I think his family originating in revolutionary France so say basil get here, so the hiring of him was fortuitous because he knew what he was doing. He was definitely the guy to come in and take care of this and his plan. Wake

it was so revolutionary. That is still in its simplicity, though, that it still so- the basis for how things work? Today? All these years later, yeah, I mean not only was revolutionaries that well built as well. I guess it's the that sewer built in from like eighteen, fifty eight to, I think the eighteen Seventys is forms, the backbone of London's metropolitan sewer system. Still to this day there was that well made. Oh, yes, he's like here's. What you do. He says we're gonna catch this water and the ways liking rainwater and stuff surface water before it gets to the river, and everyone said good start. And he said in the then we're gonna just re route. It basically we're gonna parallel to the river, and the combining sewers together and divert the stuff downstream and again The plan is sadly, still to divert it out to the sea, but just not to see such

that it would wash right back in with the tides exactly end in most importantly, where, where dumped out into the terms was way below the populated area. Yes out of sight out of mind, but it was still I mean. Is it that there is definitely a mark against it, but with considering what he had to work with. It was called Revolutionary, the idea of catching all this stuff and moving away from the city to keep the Thames Clean Right, It's a mystic another break and we'll come back and talk more about basil gets plan. It actually worked right after this idle America has ever gone back to the way that it was before nine eleven of the anthrax attacks. Fear

is really that there would be a second wave of attacks. Along comes the DC steeper and all of the countries. Worst fears are realised. The gunman most likely a skilled marksmen fired six times in the course of sixteen, hours, the police say they have never had a crime white like this. Is quite a mystery. It was scary to go to the grocery store, fill up your car with gas and then, as the Deasey sniper case, unfolded that terror only grew. She found out about this terror court than this message to police. I do believe he was Brainwash for The better terms be talked about, extorting money from the? U S, government to go, create a utopian societies where he could bring his children and other young lost souls from Iheart Radio and tender for tv. This monster DC sniper the first you episodes premier on January, second support today on the eye hard radio, app apple podcast

or wherever you get your podcast. So Chuck also Levin hundred miles. I don't know where they got. That was going away two miles, but much much more realist sure that ran parallel to the Thames, those big eighty tunnels worth I says, rose eleven hundred miles. I don't know where they got, that blows, go eighty two miles but much much more realistic by Adam there imparted of big enough to build it, took to run a train through and in fact summit he's underground sewer tunnels there, like wallets, also build an underground subway system. At the same time, I'm so is a massive project. Those use gravity. They had like a two foot drop per mile, which is pretty good, drops they would conduct,

the sewage and rainwater down down toward the terms, but not at that, using gravity and smaller ones were egg shaped so that They were narrow at the bottom, so that we can get the flow going even faster too. So that's it then the main part that's the bulk of of this project, but certainly not the whole thing by a long shot. No, not at all so they realise that there were like you know, even if you build a house that runs on gravity. There might be low lying areas of urban sewage pipe that because you problems have been to this myself to no fun, no, not to deal with poop, whether anyhow Torreon, Londoner, modern Day Atlanta, and like. Today, you have to pump that stuff out so they build these giant pumping stations, a few different ones. Crossness Abbe Mills, Chelsea endeavoured, and they made these things. Really. Nice

looking, which was probably a pretty good move, especially Abbe mills and Crossness really key their cause. Like I said this low lying, you ve got to take care of all which is ironic because they were pumping out poop the whole time and it was. This is really key there because, like you, said this low lying, you ve gotta, care of all of the problem, or else he's gonna like magnify so it wasn't good enough just to be like, let's get eighty percent of it out now we're the low levels or the low lying areas right. They really had to pump it all out yet said so they build these beautiful pumping stations one of the other things that they did was they re claimed a tremendous amount of land from the Thames at the time that the Thames just had natural banks. You're, like the over the river, just kind of came up to the city, and that was where you start, or that word the building started. What they did was a bit

massive embankments that were, but though there were the star with sea walls and then were filled in that contain the sewers contained the subway tunnels. There was just pay, we extending the city out into the Thames needed thing. It gave you a lot more space. It also covered up the tunnels, but it also very wisely brought the banks of the closer together in those stretches through the city, so the tent from wider to narrower, which had the effect of increasing its flow through London. Used to flow much more slowly than it does now, but one of the ways that they can make sure that all that stuff wash through London and gets out to the sea, is by bringing the bank's closer together to narrow it to push the same amount of volume of water through a narrower spot which speeds the whole thing up yet,

so he got the Victoria embankment today. Basil get actually was needed in eighteen? Seventy five because of these achievements that he made as an engineer and that's it find the monument to him and he would he was very funny like if you ever read any interviews with them. He just gonna talks about what, What a drag it was to do that job and how hard it was. Sort of in a very understated english way. But that's where the monument is an by eighteen, sixty six. It was evident that this plan was working because there was enough Cholera outbreak and the only part of London that was really hit hard. Was the east end which was the only section of London that wasn't connected to the sewer system, so they realize this. This is obviously working. It's gonna stop this disease its clearly, not just airborne, so that that prove that correct to yeah deftly sport. I think,

we pasture by that time had formed his germ theory than Joseph Lister was really starting to demonstrate it in the eighteenth century. He's so yeah lovers, pretty pretty pretty evident that that You know that and I think the microscope really kind of showed thy gathered. There are such things as germs the whole my asthma theories out the window near but basil, get was really smart because he was like he had. Side. He wasn't like. Let me to solve this problem like London. Has this many people and Let me, when we build this thing to handle this many people he built it. Without I'm on the future, and so You know, what's build it to accommodate a population growth of a fifty percent. And that happened. In thirty years alone, population doubled again. Because of the foresight of basil, get that still remain pretty strong at the time it did

and think about the re. So he was like. Ok we'll make it so that four and a half million people can use this thing and it'll do just fine. He must have thought it would take wherever they to get to that number and they reach six may in thirty years. It's crazy, that's a crazy amount of population growth and yet still basil gets design and one of the reasons it worked was because he had a fail, safe, I guess it was a, I guess would call it a fail safe, but it's so if there were a lot of water that suddenly hit enough like rain or something like that, like a flash flood, remember the sewers connected wage and rain water. So you didn't, the sewers overflowing into the streets, because that would mean sewage was overflowing in the streets right. He designed were basically out falls or overflows so that, if There are a sudden large amount of rainwater entered the sewers. It would be directed to spew into the Thames, which is

not the greatest thing you wanted to happen, but it would happen infrequently enough, because the sewers were so big that it was an acceptable failsafe right. And it worked and that's why we added more and more and more londoners using the same sewer system because it had those outflows will unfortunately, now reached the point thanks to things like climate change, and the fact that its creeping up on ten million londoners that the sewer system is now early routinely discharging raw sewage and storm water anytime. A heavy rain comes along and get anybody started on the fabrics either because those are just making the problems even worse so now there has to be another up day in their working on that right now to the abbot. London, still I mean the Thames is known as the cleanest River, that runs through a major city, despite this yeah much because of the work of basil get, but

This is a problem that these fifty overflows every year, no one's happy about. So they were there under way. I think started a couple years ago in two thousand, Sixteen, though the Tide Way tunnel scheme also known as the super sewer should he completed and two thousand twenty three and their goal. Basically, as are these overflows better, Cosette around fifty times a year to get those down to no more than for every year, gotcha witches good quarterly dump quarterly we're flow not bad, that beats almost once a week, you could just like a national holiday, nobody can leave town. If you could schedule it Yes, they ve been working on this for a while- and it's I mean it's one of the biggest civil engineering projects in the world, probably yeah or in world history, maybe Adam what's funny about it is that, like so basil, get created the Seward catch the sewage before it reached the Thames

their creating this super sewer, the Tide way tunnel to catch the overflow from basil get sewers before it reaches the Thames. Yes, system is still the foundation yeah, They definitely added to an improved on it. They, I guess, sometime in the twentieth century, stop just pumping run sewage into the Thames inserted, treating it instead and then they still discharge. The treaty water into the tens, but it's not going through treatment process that wasn't there before, but yes, but that thing designed by basil get this made of bricks like three honey. Something million bricks is still there, foundation of this the sewer system in London, pretty amazing. I think so too. And all because of the great stink of eighteen. Fifty eight, because of a heat wave that came through in cooked several four years of poop and p environment dead bodies. This may We want to do maybe a short stuff on the when the I augur river in

great arena, Ohio burned, river on fire, is not a good sign, no its poor Cleveland. Nobody's gonna hunger of hung in like totally only a good source ethnic. I agree: Chuck in the meantime lower whipping up that short stuff for you. If you I know more about the great stink had on over to the internet and read up on it cause. There's plenty a great articles includes than the ones we use today and since I said that everybody it's time for listener, mail, pig. I started listing the stuff you should know some time last summer have been hooked ever since I've been working my way back to the cataloguing, probably listen into a couple of hundred, I listen to some of the other shows you guys talk about, but they feel too scripted Your show is really well done. Educational and entertaining thank you, love, Andrew now, getting there's more

in a few different episode, you guys used the word Yankee alight. New England, vampires for one monument removal come to mind by the way we use Yankee rather quoting or like our tunnel her cheek were not like really Saint Yankee Nose like love. No one really says I mean there are people, this anger, yeah but their rednecks, I'm from New England and have lived all over New England, and I am still in New England wanted to share with you all my favorite definition of Yankee, if you're from the south and by the way, a ship this by saying I don't get it If you're from the south, a Yankee is someone from the north, if you're from the north, a yankee as someone from New England from New England, the Yankee a summit from Vermont who eats pie for breakfast with a knife. Do you get them now

think, I'm what Andrew doesn't realize that the person who told him that is insane and that the only person who gets it is the person who told him that he said this comes from an old timey at farmer in Vermont that I used to work for so I with the knife and left to glad you get out of their alive Andrew. Yet until thanks thanks If anyone out there can shed some light on Andrews Farmers, friends, joke we'd love to know you can get in touch with this. Go to study should know die common check out our social links there, and you can also to send us a good old fashioned email to stuff podcast, I dont think America has ever gone back to the way that it was before to do see a safer, the gunman most likely a skilled marksman fired six times in the course of sixteen hours. It was actually really upset, but buddy.

Able to recover from heartbreak to trace your dna escaped the internet on our podcast away to go. We ve been exploring all the recently and generally Europe, I'm party Rosati and, together with the boundaries of trouble, website tough, and we have already heard so many great story such an actress in rural Kenya, explaining the ins and outs of safe Sech, a graffiti artists, italian, the islands of Southeast Asia, a producer Lincoln High Fashioned Photoshop in the desert, listen to a way to go on the Iheart radio, asked Apple podcast or whatever you get your plan